Elizabeth Poliner — Spinning at the Edges: A Novel -with Alice McDermott

From the author of the acclaimed As Close to Us as Breathing, a captivating novel steeped in history, revealing the bonds of family and community, and the healing powers hidden inside broken hearts.For much of her adult life Ruth Pearl has lived in the small New England town of Wells, Connecticut, on the shore of Lake Topaqua. Decades back, when she was fourteen, she and her parents fled German-occupied Amsterdam after the murder of her beloved older sister Sophia, and in the wake of such loss, Ruth has long taken comfort in the natural beauty of her lake view.But in the winter of 2000, Ruth’s neighbor builds an addition to his home that blocks Ruth’s view, a disruption of her peace that sparks fear that her tumultuous past is happening again.One day, seeking solace, Ruth heads out for a cathartic skate on the lake only to spot a boy in the distance falling through the ice. Also witnessing this event is Judge Arthur Cantrell, by chance in Wells that day to avoid the consequences of a failed romance.Together, Ruth and Arthur save Ian Lima, a despairing sixteen-year-old, and over the days to come, as Ruth and Arthur help Ian heal, they find themselves healing too. Soon enough, this turn of events begins to impact Ruth’s daughter, Ian’s mother, and even Arthur’s love interest.In Spinning at the Edges, Elizabeth Poliner, a masterful storyteller, seamlessly interweaves the lives of a rich cast of characters living in two historical time periods—America 2000, marked by a controversial presidential election, and Netherlands 1941, marked by rising fascism—to tell an unforgettable story about how the past haunts the present, how sharing pain heals, and how love—and even democracy—are fragile concepts in a changing, spinning world.Elizabeth Poliner is the author of the novel As Close to Us as Breathing, which won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize in Fiction and was a finalist for the Library of Virginia’s People’s Choice Award in Fiction and the Ribalow Prize. She has also published a poetry collection, What You Know in Your Hands, and a novel-in-stories, Mutual Life & Casualty. Her stories have been published in The Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, Michigan Quarterly Review, Story, and Colorado Review, among other journals. She lives in Virginia.Poliner is in conversation with Alice McDermott, her ninth novel, Absolution, was an instant New York Times bestseller, winner of the 2024 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award and finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award.  Charming Billy won the National Book Award for fiction. That Night, At Weddings and Wakes and After This were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.  Her novels have been short-listed for the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kirkus Prize and the Dublin IMPAC Award. She is also the author of an essay collection, What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction. For two decades, she was the Richard A. Mackey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University. She has been named Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  Her tenth novel, Herself, Of Course, will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2027.PURCHASE:https://politics-prose.com/book/9780063434530?ic_referral=xISjBneqS_OmEeurIns8aRRybgokyko8QBSWoNVYjEIwMx08pGbefD9kmdUnBrLgwv7jKL0jSdqX-DDsUGlsxmavhnowXwBI1gIpC9Mw-r1dZcyu4MiQI7W5JsJDDqPuqGtG-YQ