Summary

The O' Briens is an unforgettable saga of love, loss, and change spanning half a century in the lives of a restless patriarch and his splendid, tragic, ambitious clan. In Joe O' Brien-- backwoods boy, railroad magnate, brooding soul-- Peter Behrens gives us a fiercely compelling man who exchanges isolation and poverty in the Canadian wilds for a share in the dazzling possibilities and consuming sorrows of the twentieth century. When Joe meets Iseult Wilkins in Venice-by-the-Sea, California, their courtship becomes the first movement in a symphony of the generations. The O' Briens is the story of a marriage and a family moving through the turbulence of history, told with epic precision and wondrous imagination.

Editorial Reviews

“Impressive…World War II hovers in this novel’s path like flak and rips the lives of the novel’s characters to shreds. The last hundred pages are a powerful evocation of that war’s effect…A major accomplishment.” —New York Times Book Review

“As befits a saga so ambitious in design, there is an able mixture of agony and ecstasy throughout. Time and time again, Behrens proves himself a first-rate seanchaí, the Irish term for a storyteller, by bringing the O’Brien clan to life on the page. En route, he fashions a topographically capacious narrative that relishes the scents of Santa Barbara, the pastoral beauty of the Ojai Valley and the tidal mantras of coastal Maine.” —Washington Post

“Powerful…Moments of grace and romance are rocked by cruel words and violence in this epic, a piece of rough beauty itself.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“The story of Joe O’Brien and his family is epic in its scope…and lifetimes unfold in its pages. That the lives hold our attention so closely is a tribute to Behrens’ beautiful writing, and a reminder of just how vital, brutal, and pervasive love is.” —Huffington Post

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Author Bio: Peter Behrens

Peter Behrens is a Canadian novelist, screenwriter and short story writer. His debut novel, The Law of Dreams, won the 2006 Governor General's Award for English fiction. Behrens was born and raised in Montreal, where he studied at Concordia University and McGill University. His earliest short fiction can be found in Best Canadian Stories 1978 and Best Canadian Stories 1979, and in his debut short story collection, Night Driving (1987). He subsequently worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter; though he continued to publish short stories and essays in Canadian and American magazines, he did not publish another book until The Law of Dreams, his novel of a homeless lad thrown off his lands by the Ireland's Great Potato Famine. Behrens currently lives in Maine with his family.

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Details

Format:	Retail CD	Format:	MP3 CD
Available Formats :	Retail CD, MP3 CD
Category:	Fiction/Literary
Publisher:	Recorded Books, Inc.	Publisher:	Recorded Books, Inc.
CDs:	11	CDs:	1
Runtime:	13.09
ISBN:	9781664406919	ISBN:	9781664662247
Audience:	Adult
Language:	English

The O'Briens

Summary

Summary

Editorial Reviews

Editorial Reviews

Reviews