Ten Things I've Learnt About Love
A Novel
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
About to turn thirty, Alice is the youngest of three daughters, and the black sheep of her family. Drawn to traveling in far-flung and often dangerous countries, she has never enjoyed the closeness with her father that her two older sisters have and has eschewed their more conventional career paths. She has left behind a failed relationship in London with the man she thought she might marry and is late to hear the news that her father is dying. She returns to the family home only just in time to say good-bye.
Daniel is called many things—"tramp", "bum", "lost." He hasn't had a roof over his head for almost thirty years, but he once had a steady job and a passionate love affair with a woman he’s never forgotten. To him, the city of London has come to be like home in a way that no bricks and mortar dwelling ever was. He makes sculptures out of the objects he finds on his walks throughout the city—bits of string and scraps of paper, a child’s hair tie, and a lost earring—and experiences synesthesia, a neurological condition which causes him to see words and individual letters of the alphabet as colors. But as he approaches his sixties his health is faltering, and he is kept alive by the knowledge of one thing—that he has a daughter somewhere in the world whom he has never been able to find.
A searching and inventive debut, Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love is a story about finding love in unexpected places, about rootlessness and homecoming, and the power of the ties that bind. It announces Sarah Butler as a major new talent for telling stories that are heart-wrenching, page-turning, and unforgettable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Alice, the youngest of three sisters, has felt oddly disconnected from her family since the death of her mother when she was four. Leaving her father and siblings and a failed romance in London, she sets out to travel the world, wandering from place to place until her sisters summon her home because their father is dying of pancreatic cancer. Alice is adrift and unsettled, unable to communicate her love to her father before he dies, and self-conscious about her choices when compared to her sisters. Alice alternates narration with Daniel, a 60-year old homeless man whose heart troubles are causing him to revisit his past, including the affair he had with a married woman. As Alice moves forward, cleaning her deceased father's house and making peace with her sisters, Daniel works up the courage to approach her. The relationship they build is unusual, and Butler's elegant prose interspersed with thoughtful lists, such as "Ten things I know about my mother" and "Ten foods that stress me out," written by Alice and Daniel makes this a moving debut.
Customer Reviews
A real gem
This is a beautifully written book, like nothing I've read before. Imaginative, poetic and intriguing. Wish I knew London better because it paints a wonderful portrait of a magical city. The delicacy of this book is a thing to saver.