Overview

From the three-time National Book Award nominee and New York Times bestselling author Gail Godwin comes an incandescent reflection on past and present that speaks urgently to our current political moment. “He just had the presidency stolen from him.” Gail Godwin first heard these words in November 1960, one of a crush of reporters eagerly awaiting the first postelection meeting between Kennedy and Nixon. Hearing an uncanny echo in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, Godwin embarks on a project to reflect on that long-ago moment and offset a mounting pressure of dread about the looming election ahead. In looking back at her life as a young woman—her travels abroad, early marriage, friendships with Kurt Vonnegut and John Irving—juxtaposed with the lead-up to the recent election, she discovers an understory that surprises her. She asks herself, “What, at this late date, did I still want to become?” With urgency and a yearning so many now feel, Godwin’s blend of history and memoir is both inspirational and rousing, encouraging readers to engage in their own reflection on the art and meaning of being a citizen.

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9781639738748

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Reviews

""Could just as easily be called Getting to Know Life. As a meditation, it is both unsentimental and full of wonder. As a piece of writing, it stands beside the best of Godwin's fiction. Extraordinary."" --Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of TOM LAKE on GETTING TO KNOW DEATH ""Radiant."" --Laura Miller, Slate, on GETTING TO KNOW DEATH ""As always, wry, beady-eyed, acute."" --Margaret Atwood, via Twitter on OLD LOVEGOOD GIRLS ""A chronicle of her life as a writer whose career has been boosted and buffeted by the vagaries of the publishing industry. She has made of it a suspenseful account, with . . . emotional depth, too."" --The Wall Street Journal on PUBLISHING: A WRITER'S MEMOIR

Could just as easily be called Getting to Know Life. As a meditation, it is both unsentimental and full of wonder. As a piece of writing, it stands beside the best of Godwin's fiction. Extraordinary. * Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of TOM LAKE on GETTING TO KNOW DEATH * Radiant. * Laura Miller, Slate, on GETTING TO KNOW DEATH * As always, wry, beady­eyed, acute. * Margaret Atwood, via Twitter on OLD LOVEGOOD GIRLS * A chronicle of her life as a writer whose career has been boosted and buffeted by the vagaries of the publishing industry. She has made of it a suspenseful account, with . . . emotional depth, too. * The Wall Street Journal on PUBLISHING: A WRITER'S MEMOIR *

Author Information

Gail Godwin is the bestselling author of more than twenty critically acclaimed books, including the memoir Getting to Know Death, and the novels Grief Cottage, Grief Cottage, Evensong, and A Mother and Two Daughters. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants for both fiction and libretto writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Woodstock, New York. www.gailgodwin.com

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