The Pilgrim - Softcover

Nissenson, Hugh

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1402271018 ISBN 13: 9781402271014

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark, 2012

Synopsis

Charles Wentworth, a heartbroken Puritan, comes to the New World from England in 1622 in search of salvation and a new beginning. Burdened with a lifelong struggle between his desire for faith and his doubts about God's love for him, he leaves the only land he has ever known after the death of his fiancée, in hopes of being freed of the temptations that torment him.

A new masterpiece from National Book Award and Pen/Faulkner Award finalist Hugh Nissenson, The Pilgrim explores the foundation myths of America, a country settled by people intoxicated by the pursuit of God and yearning for redemption and freedom.

About this title

About the Author:

Hugh Nissenson is the author of eight books, including the recent illustrated novel The Song of the Earth, which received a number of superb reviews in the New Yorker, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times among others. His previous novel The Tree of Life was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pen-Faulkner Award in 1985. He lives in New York City.

Review:

"Nissenson has penned a bleak, unsparing novel, peopled with flawed humans and accurate period details." - Historical Novel Review

"Nissenson, acclaimed for his powerful narratives (The Days of Awe; The Tree of Life), here shows the tight grip of religious devotion on one young man's mind... History, politics, faith, and daily life all come together in a strong story." - Library Journal

"The "Pilgrim" is such a delightful find. Hugh Nissenson's moody, intelligent novel is about a tormented English Puritan who strikes out for the Plymouth Plantation in 1622... It conjures up that dangerous black magic spell that the most powerful historical novels cast: The "Pilgrim" makes us feel that, even if this version of the past isn't quite accurate, this is the version we wholeheartedly believe - at least for the space of reading."" - NPR.org

"Nissenson spins a compelling historical tale steeped in the religious and cultural customs of the original Puritans... The authentically rendered first-person perspective that propels the narrative illuminates both Wentworth's prolonged dark night of the soul and his daily trials and experiences. " - Booklist

""The reader is transported back to the earliest days of the settling of America by the sworn statement of one Charles Wentworth, who came to Plymouth soon after the Mayflower landing. The powerful influence of religion and the church is portrayed through his struggles with both his humanity and his faith, as Charles mourns the tragic loss of his betrothed while at the same time reveling in the death of the 'savages' who must be conquered to create a safe new home. This is a great work of historical fiction" " -

""Hugh Nissenson's vision of a re-created society and ethos is remarkable, the language crafted out of plainness and purity a plainness and purity which, both in the individual phrase and cumulatively, rise to majesty. The "Pilgrim" is a masterwork of fierceness, insight, inhabitation, and relentless power." -Cynthia Ozick, author of Foreign Bodies" -

""Hugh Nissenson's The "Pilgrim" is a startling, beautiful, numinous prose-poem about the founding of our country. It will surely be enshrined forever in the canon of American literature." -Johanna Kaplan, O My America!, Other People's Lives" -

""A lustrous recreation. Hugh Nissenson has taken the ore of research and transmuted it into the gold of art. The "Pilgrim" is impossible to put
down until the final words. And then they continue to carom endlessly in the mind." -Stefan Kanfer, author of Tough Without a Gun (recent Bogart bio), Ball of Fire (Lucille Ball bio), Groucho
" -

About this edition

• Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1402271018
• ISBN 13: 9781402271014
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368