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Taft is the story of John Nickel, a black ex-musician who wanted nothing more than to be a good father. But his son is taken away from him and he is left with nothing but the Memphis bar he manages. When he hires a young white waitress named Fay Taft, he doesn't know that he is taking on her desperate brother, Carl, as well. Nickel's sympathies for these two quickly become a dangerous path into the lives of strangers.
As the ominous events of the story unfold, Nickel is consumed with the idea of Taft, Fay and Carl's dead father. Through imagination, he begins to reconstruct the life of a man he never met. Through Taft, he begins to define the priorities of his own life.
The voice of John Nickel is a stunning artistic achievement. The story it tells is universal in its appeal to our instincts to protect the people we love. Taft confirms Ann Patchett's standing as one of the most gifted writers of her generation.
As the ominous events of the story unfold, Nickel is consumed with the idea of Taft, Fay and Carl's dead father. Through imagination, he begins to reconstruct the life of a man he never met. Through Taft, he begins to define the priorities of his own life.
The voice of John Nickel is a stunning artistic achievement. The story it tells is universal in its appeal to our instincts to protect the people we love. Taft confirms Ann Patchett's standing as one of the most gifted writers of her generation.
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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
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- PublisherHoughton Mifflin (Trade)
- Publication date1996
- ISBN 10 0395694612
- ISBN 13 9780395694619
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages305
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