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Title details for The Edge of Lost by Kristina McMorris - Available

The Edge of Lost

by Kristina McMorris
ebook
2 of 2 copies available
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2 of 2 copies available
From bestselling author Kristina McMorris comes an ambitious and heartrending story of immigrants, deception, and second chances.

On a cold night in October 1937, searchlights cut through the darkness around Alcatraz. A prison guard's only daughter—one of the youngest civilians who lives on the island—has gone missing. Tending the warden's greenhouse, convicted bank robber Tommy Capello waits anxiously. Only he knows the truth about the little girl's whereabouts, and that both of their lives depend on the search's outcome.

Almost two decades earlier and thousands of miles away, a young boy named Shanley Keagan ekes out a living in Dublin pubs. Talented and shrewd, Shan dreams of shedding his dingy existence and finding his real father in America. The chance finally comes to cross the Atlantic, but when tragedy strikes, Shan must summon all his ingenuity to forge a new life in a volatile and foreign world.

Skillfully weaving these two stories, Kristina McMorris delivers a compelling novel that moves from Ireland to New York to San Francisco Bay. As her finely crafted characters discover the true nature of loyalty, sacrifice, and betrayal, they are forced to confront the lies we tell—and believe—in order to survive.

"Will grab your heart on page one and won't let go until the end.
I absolutely love this book, and so will you."
—Sara Gruen, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Water for Elephants

"An absorbing, addictive read."
—Beatriz Williams, New York Times bestselling author

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 24, 2015

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780758281197
      • File size: 407 KB

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780758281197
      • File size: 2702 KB

  • Accessibility

    The publisher provides the following statement about the accessibility of the EPUB file supplied to OverDrive. Experiences may vary across reading systems. After borrowing the book, you may download the EPUB files to read in another reading system.

    Ways Of Reading

    • No information about appearance modifiability is available.

    • Not all of the content will be readable as read aloud speech or dynamic braille.

    Conformance

    • No information is available.

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 11, 2016
      McMorris (The Pieces We Keep) subverts the rags-to-riches immigrant story in this breezy tale set between Ireland and Alcatraz. In the preface, we meet inmate 257 of Alcatraz before the story opens years earlier in Ireland when young Shanley Keagan, orphaned and scraping by with his drunken uncle, discovers he has an American father. They set off to find him, but Shan's uncle dies in transit, leaving Shan to fend for himself. Fortunately, the Capellos, an Italian family on the ship, take an interest, although the tradeoff is that Shan must give up his name and become a Capello. The story makes for compulsive reading as it jumps between Shan's youth and young adulthood, touching on such diverse underworlds as the Black Hand mafia, which Shan becomes entangled with when he joins the Capellos, and the Vaudeville life, which he aspires to join as a performer and comic. There is a lot to cover however, and at times Shan's character as presented to the reader â sensitive, loyal, and passiveâ contrasts rather unconvincingly with how others characters perceive him â tough and ruthless, but this is still an intricate and intriguing entry into the American immigrant canon.

    • BookPage
      Kristina McMorris evokes such a strong sense of place in her writing that to open her books feels less like reading and more like traveling. Her absorbing new novel, The Edge of Lost, opens on Alcatraz Island in 1937, where on a foggy night the warden’s 10-year-old daughter has gone missing. An inmate working in the warden’s greenhouse is hiding information about where she is. We are quickly zipped back to 1919 Dublin, meeting Shanley Keagan, a 12-year-old orphan whose vicious Uncle Will forces him to perform in pubs for spare change. Shan grabs an opportunity to get on a ship to America, scrabbling to forge a future in New York. How those two storylines intersect is at the heart of this epic, deeply felt tale of struggle and second chances, where Shan goes from a boy with dreams of Broadway to an inmate who “waited for the steel bars to slam” while he served 15 to 25 years. McMorris has made a name for herself with beautifully written World War II fiction, including her debut, Letters from Home, which was based upon her grandfather’s wartime letters to a girlfriend. Her latest novel was inspired in part by McMorris’ reading about children who grew up on Alcatraz Island, whose parents were employed at the infamous prison. Some of the children claimed to be friends with inmates, although they were forbidden to talk to them. But Alcatraz is just one of many places in The Edge of Lost, a transporting piece of historical fiction in which America is a melting pot, a place of supper clubs and Model Ts, Prohibition and fedoras, dreams and disappointments.  This article was originally published in the December 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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