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Claire Messud, the bestselling author of "The Emperor's Children," returns with "This Strange Eventful History" (W.W. Norton), a multi-generational story of family secrets spanning World War II to the 21st century.
Read an excerpt below. "This Strange Eventful History" by Claire Messud $26 at Amazon Prefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now. Try Audible for free Prologue I'm a writer; I tell stories.
Of course, really, I want to save lives. Or simply: I want to save life. Seven years, the clairvoyant said, that summer afternoon already long ago.
Seven years in the Valley of the Shadow. The sunlight through the window behind her head transformed her rusty curls into a golden nimbus. We sat opposite each other over a card table in the front room of her chintzy saltbox, a mile from the waterfront in a seaside New England holiday town.
Like most of her clients, I was just passing through. Though I told her I was a writer, she insisted that I was a healer; once she said it, I willed it to be true. Or: I realized I had always willed it to be true, though we're told that poetry makes nothing happen.
My desire, as old as humanity, to make words signify. Seven years' journey in the shadow of Death: at the time of her prophecy, I was almost halfway through, if one counted from the family trip to my late grandparents' home in Toulon, France, to celebrate my father's se.
