Items related to Taft
John Nickel is a black ex-jazz musician who only wants to be a good father. But when his son is taken away from him, he's left with nothing but the Memphis bar he manages. Then he hires Fay, a young white waitress, who has a volatile brother named Carl in tow. Nickel finds himself consumed with the idea of Taft -- Fay and Carl's dead father -- and begins to reconstruct the life of a man he never met. But his sympathies for these lost souls soon take him down a twisting path into the lives of strangers...
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
Families are not simply made up of blood relations; this Ann Patchett understands better than most. John Nickel used to be a jazz drummer, but now runs a bar in Memphis, Tennessee; the mother of his son has taken the boy away, to unimaginable Florida; Nickel is left to find family where he can. What he finds are the Tafts: Fay and Carl, sister and brother, adrift in Memphis after the death of their father, the Taft of the title. Nickel gives Fay a job as a waitress; twice her age, black when she is white, he is torn by the nature of his feelings for her, drifting uneasily as they do between fatherly and sensual.
Review:
As in her later novel, The Magician's Assistant, the spiritual motor of the novel is a character dead at its beginning: Taft, the absent father. Bereft of his own son, Nickel conjures Taft as the perfect father to children lost without him. But this is a darker novel, its ending less hopeful--less magical, though Patchett's prose is wonderfully beguiling--but perhaps more truthful for that.--Erica Wagner
'As resonant as a blues song ... Expect miracles when you read Ann Patchett's fiction.' -- New York Times
'Taft shows the author's skill at putting herself - and her readers - in another skin ... Her skill is simply extraordinary.' -- Erica Wagner, The Times
'The emotional ties are so taut that the merest touch from Patchett sets everything jangling. A marvellously understated book.' -- Guardian
'Taft shows the author's skill at putting herself - and her readers - in another skin ... Her skill is simply extraordinary.' -- Erica Wagner, The Times
'The emotional ties are so taut that the merest touch from Patchett sets everything jangling. A marvellously understated book.' -- Guardian
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherPerennial
- Publication date2003
- ISBN 10 0060540761
- ISBN 13 9780060540760
- BindingPaperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages256
- Rating
Buy New
Learn more about this copy
£ 53.11
Shipping:
£ 3.16
Within U.S.A.
Other Popular Editions of the Same Title
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
Taft
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0060540761
Buy New
£ 53.11
Convert currency
Stock Image
Taft
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Brand New Copy. Seller Inventory # BBB_new0060540761
Buy New
£ 78.90
Convert currency
Stock Image
Taft
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0060540761
Buy New
£ 77.94
Convert currency
Stock Image
Taft
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0060540761
Buy New
£ 78.65
Convert currency
Stock Image
Buy New
£ 78.03
Convert currency
Stock Image
TAFT
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 0.41. Seller Inventory # Q-0060540761
Buy New
£ 78.30
Convert currency