Description

Forty-four-year-old Reta Winters, wife, mother, writer, and translator, is living a happy life until one of her three daughters drops out of university to sit on a downtown street corner silent and cross-legged with a begging bowl in her lap and a placard round her neck that says "Goodness."

The final book from Pulitzer Prize-winner Carol Shields, Unless is a candid and deeply moving novel from one of the twentieth century's most accomplished and beloved authors.

About the Author

Carol Shields was born in Chicago and lived in Canada for most of her life. She is the author of three short story collections and eight novels, including the Pulitzer Prize -- winning The Stone Diaries and Larry’s Party, winner of the Orange Prize.

Praise for Unless…

“With a poet’s precision, Shields dissects grief and makes coping with bad luck feel like domestic heroism.”
-People

“Nothing short of astonishing.”
-The New Yorker

“Relentlessly fine...imagined with style and vigor, melancholoy and wisdom.”
-San Diego Union-Tribune

“Remarkably subtle and unsettling...one of those books that make you regret that reading is a solitary pleasure.”
-Christian Science Monitor

“A fine book, poignant, witty, rich in character, vivid in its sense of place...surprisingly suspenseful.”
-St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Truly, a miracle of language and perception.”
-The Oregonian (Portland)

“Finely detailed, thoughtful and sometimes even humorous, this book is highly recommended for all fiction collections.”
-Library Journal

“Often quietly heartbreaking...often, bitingly humorous.”
-Kirkus (starred review)

“Some hefty perceptions, fortunately shared with us in this fine novel.”
-Washington Post Book World

“All novelists worth their fictional salt can create fine characters; Carol Shields creates lives. ”
-New York Times Book Review

“Unless succeeds beautifully...Shields [is] an expert at illuminating the complicated dynamics of off-kilter families.”
-Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Closely observed moments create the kind of subtle textures and elegant prose that won Ms. Shields the Pulitzer Prize.”
-Richmond Times-Dispatch

“All the trademark Shields delights are robustly present: idiosyncratic plotting; limber prose...deep compassion...tart commentary and irreverent wit.”
-Orlando Sentinel

“When Shields is good she is very good. There are nuggets of pure gold in Unless.”
-Newark Star Ledger

“A novel of...assured intelligence and defiant vivacity.”
-San Francisco Chronicle

“A superb new novel...a graceful coda, an arabesque performed over an abyss.”
-Time Magazine

“All novelists worth their fictional salt can create fine characters; Carol Shields creates lives. ”
-New York Times Book Review

“A wonderful, powerful book, written in a style which combines simplicity and elegance. I found it deeply moving.”
-Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat

“Marvelously idiosyncratic, passionate and wise, Shields’ tenth novel rollicks from beginning to end with sauciness and wit.”
-Book Magazine

“Luminous ... Shields is a consummate master of tone and acute psychological insight.”
-Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Nothing short of astonishing.”
-The New Yorker

“A thing of beauty—lucidly written, artfully ordered, riddled with riddles and undergirded with dark layers of philosophical meditations.”
-Los Angeles Times

“An engaging, memorable novel.”
-Cleveland Plain Dealer

“A fitting farewell from an author revered for her graceful, insightful writing...sparkles with wry humor and elegant irony.”
-Hartford Courant

“Shields’s novels and short stories are intensely imagined, humanely generous, beautifully sustained and impeccably detailed.”
-Publishers Weekly

“A landmark book...yet another noteworthy addition to Shields’s impressive body of work.”
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Entirely satisfying… Shields’ voice, tender and moderated at all times, remains wise and very readable.”
-Houston Chronicle

“A superb new novel...a graceful coda, an arabesque performed over an abyss.”
-Time magazine

“A luminous novel ...Shields writes with clarity, intelligence and generosity, finding meaning in most mundane details of home life.”
-Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“A brave, profound, and quirky novel with an undercurrent of the deeply amusing.”
-Anita Shreve, author of Sea Glass

“Her wisdom and generosity of spirit are visible at every turn.”
-London Times (Sunday)

“A raw, subtle, inspiring novel about feminism, femininity, virtue, oppression and motherhood...I was inexpressibly moved by it.”
-Rachel Cusk, Daily Telegraph (London)

“The best of her novels...fearless, smart, funny, beautifully written.”
-New Orleans Times-Picayune