Synopsis "Oliver Loving (in English)"
"A dazzling novel about love, loss, and the mysteries of the mind."David Ebershoff, bestselling author of The Danish Girl and The 19th Wife"A breathtaking tale of tragedy and redemption...A triumph."PeopleA family in crisis, a town torn apart, and the boy who holds the secret has been cocooned in a coma for ten years.One warm, West Texas November night, a shy boy named Oliver Loving joins his classmates at Bliss County Day Schools annual dance, hoping for a glimpse of the object of his unrequited affections, an enigmatic Junior named Rebekkah Sterling. But as the music plays, a troubled young man sneaks in through the schools back door. The dire choices this man makes that eveningand the unspoken story he carrieswill tear the town of Bliss, Texas apart.Nearly ten years later, Oliver Loving still lies wordless and paralyzed at Crockett State Assisted Care Facility, the fate of his mind unclear. Orbiting the stillpoint of Olivers hospital bed is a family transformed: Olivers mother, Eve, who keeps desperate vigil; Olivers brother, Charlie, who has fled for New York City only to discover he cannot escape the gravity of his shattered family; Olivers father, Jed, who tries to erase his memories with bourbon. And then there is Rebekkah Sterling, Olivers teenage love, who left Texas long ago and still refuses to speak about her own part in that tragic night. When a new medical test promises a key to unlock Olivers trapped mind, the towns unanswered questions resurface with new urgency, as Olivers doctors and his family fight for a way for Oliver to finally communicateand so also to tell the truth of what really happened that fateful night.A moving meditation on the transformative power of grief and love, a slyly affectionate look at the idiosyncrasies of family, and an emotionally-charged page-turner, Stefan Merill Block's Oliver Loving is an extraordinarily original novel that ventures into the unknowable and returns with the most fundamental truths.
