Distant Music

Two Novels: The Gunnysack Castle and the Death of Mae Ramos Volume 6

By: Julian Silva

Write A Review

Paperback | 30 January 2007

At a Glance

Paperback
552 Pages

Age
22+

Dimensions(cm)
22.23 x 15.24 x 3.18

Paperback

$82.75

or 4 interest-free payments of $20.69 with

or

Ships in 5 to 10 business days

Two discretely shaped yet interdependent narratives creating a family saga from the viewpoints of both maternal and paternal lines (a difficult and rarely successful strategy for fiction) comprise this large and capacious novel. Distant Music begins in the nineteenth-century and extends well into the twentieth, a diptych retelling the story of the Woods and Ramos families and their descents in rough-and-tumble California. In crisp, succinct, and often elegant prose, rich in deftly selected detail, Julian Silva celebrates not only the resilience of men and women confronted with failure but--even more important--he adumbrates the compromised morality of their achievement.

The Gunnysack Castle was first published by Ohio University Press in 1983. A study of the character of Belle Bettencourt was published by Cosmopolitan Magazine in March 1964.

The second section of The Death of Mae Ramos, ""Vasco and the Other,"" was originally published in 1979 under a different title and in a slightly different form in the University of Colorado's Writer's Forum 6.

Industry Reviews

"[T]he women in the book are complex, vulnerable, proud, silly and wise; in other words, they are real people and their lives and their stories are affecting and memorable."--San Jose Mercury News

"A first novel with a ring of authenticity."--The Fresno Bee

"Praise for The Gunnysack Castle by Julian Silva: 'The rise of an anglicized Portuguese is chronicled in a weaving of many strands the immigrant experience, the place of women, the ambience of the nouveau riche that makes a voluptuous tapestry of life and richly satisfying first novel... This is a compelling novel of Portuguese assimilation into the American mainstream.'"--Publisher's Weekly

Shipping

	Standard Shipping	Express Shipping
Metro postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Regional postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Rural postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95

Orders over $79.00 qualify for free shipping.

How to return your order

At Booktopia, we offer hassle-free returns in accordance with our returns policy. If you wish to return an item, please get in touch with Booktopia Customer Care.

Additional postage charges may be applicable.