Livesey's latest is a love story, of sorts: Zeke is a 29-year-old handyman; Verona is thirtysomething, single, and pregnant. They meet in a London house he is renovating, spend 24 hours together, and fall in love. The next day, she mysteriously departs for America, and the duration of the book deals with their search for each other and the complications in their lives.
Critic Reviews
|
Outstanding
|
Boston Globe Kera Bolonik
In Livesey's deft hands, their connection is as credible (and incredible) as love itself.
|
|
Outstanding
|
Kirkus Reviews
Like all Livesey's novels: notable for her penetrating knowledge of the human heart coupled with respect for its essential mysteries, both explored in elegant, evocative prose.
|
|
Outstanding
|
Library Journal Mary Margaret Benson
This gem of a novel manages to be funny, frightening, and upbeat all at the same time. [1 Oct 2004, p.71]
|
|
Outstanding
|
Publishers Weekly
Moments like these are ghosts that dance in the reader's vision long after the photographer's flashbulb has popped.
|
|
Favorable
|
Booklist Carol Haggas
Told from the parallel viewpoints of her wistful hero and his winsome heroine, Livesey's unlikely yet enchanting romance poignantly reveals the mysterious machinations of the human heart. [1 Sept 2004, p.101]
|
|
Favorable
|
Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
Their longing for each other, tender, mutual, and inexplicable, is this lovely book's powerful underlying chord.
|
|
Favorable
|
The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Stephen Amidon
Livesey has always possessed a remarkable talent for creating quirky, desperate people, and Banishing Verona proves no exception.
|
|
Favorable
|
The New York Times Richard Eder
Ms. Livesey is interested not in medical conditions but in the human condition. Her notable accomplishment is to use Zeke's deflected sensibility to portray this condition, the riptides that nudge him off course and a countervailing resiliency of spirit that can right him.
|
|
Favorable
|
USA Today Jackie Pray
Livesey, a first-rate storyteller, examines the ties that bind families and lovers. Her take on life is original, her use of perspective deft, and her prose lovely.
|
|
Mixed
|
Washington Post Carolyn See
I can almost believe in the extraordinarily articulate, exquisitely sensitive, mentally challenged Zeke, but Verona lost me on Page 14.
|
|
Mixed
|
The New York Times Book Review Katherine Dieckmann
What makes Livesey's defiantly cerebral approach especially disappointing is that her great gift is for concrete, tactile detail.
|
|
Mixed
|
Chicago Tribune Julia Livshin
As the mixups and missed connections pile up, the urgency of Verona's quest gets watered down--and the suspense right along with it. [28 Nov 2004, p.C1]
|
|
Unfavorable
|
San Francisco Chronicle Floyd Skloot
Lacking her customary energy and precision, this is a novel that showcases Livesey's primary concerns but not her storytelling originality.
|
|
