A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [0]
A MAP OF THE WORLD
“Like a lot of books singled out for praise, A Map of the World can be described as a page-turner. But in this case, the pages are turned with trembling hands.”
—People
“This beautifully written story follows the form and function of all great literature: it assembles a gripping cast of sinners, sufferers, and opportunists, then gives them the settings and self-perceptions to hang or redeem themselves.”
—Glamour
“Few writers have the courage to attempt a truly adult novel or the skill to produce one. Thankfully, Jane Hamilton is among them. A daring writer.”
—New York Daily News
“The book is exquisite in its individual passages, compelling as a whole.”
—Women’s Review of Books
“Unforgettably, beat by beat, Hamilton maps the best and worst of the human heart and all the mysterious, uncharted country in between.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Hamilton’s special genius lies in blending the quotidian and the mythic.”
—U.S. News & World Report
“A beautifully developed and written story reminiscent of the work of Sue Miller and Jane Smiley … one wants to read this powerful novel at one sitting.”
—Publishers Weekly
“… engrossing, powerful …”
—Christian Science Monitor
Also by Jane Hamilton :
THE BOOK OF RUTH
First Anchor Books Edition, June 1995
Copyright © 1994 by Jane Hamilton
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canad Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday in 1994.
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events; to real people, living or dead; or to real locales are intended only to give the fiction a setting in historic reality. Other names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
Special thanks to master cartographer Katy Seeley, and to the National Endowment for the Arts, and to the Ragdale Foundation, where much of this book was written.
The author gratefully acknowledges permission to quote from the following:
The Poems of W. B. Yeats: A New Edition, edited by Richard J. Finneron. Copyright 1940 by Georgie Yeats, renewed 1968 by Bertha Georgie Yeats, Michael Butler Yeats, and Anne Yeats. Used by permission.
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins. Copyright renewed 1960 by Roger MacBride. Little House is a registered trademark of HarperCollins.
Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Oxford University Press. Used by permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hamilton, Jane, 1957–
A map of the world / by Jane Hamilton. — 1st Anchor Books ed.
p. cm.
I. Title.
1. Dairy farms—Middle West—Fiction. 2. Farm life—Middle West—Fiction. 3. Children—Death—Fiction. 4. Middle West—Fiction. 5. Drowning—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.A4427M36 1995b
813’-54—dc20
95-3001
eISBN: 978-0-307-76406-5
www.anchorbooks.com
v3.1
For STEVEN SHAHAN
with love and thanks.
And for ELIZABETH WEINSTEIN
also with love, and with thanks in each day
all the way back to B-34.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part 1 - Alice
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part 2 - Howard
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Part 3 - Alice
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
About the Author
Alice
——
Chapter One
——
I USED TO THINK if you fell from