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Remembering the bones

Frances Itani

2007282 pagesabout 4–6 hours
2007
first published
  • 2007HarperCollins Publishers · 282 pages · ENGISBN 9780002005401
  • 2008Harper Perennial · 282 pages · ENGISBN 9780006392620
  • 2008Sceptre · 282 pages · ENGISBN 9780340953990
  • 2009Grove Press · 282 pages · ENGISBN 9780802144003
  • 2007Atlantic Monthly Press · 320 pages · ENGISBN 9780871139771

The new novel from the award-winning author of Deafening is a poignant exploration of one eighty-year-old life, as its heroine lies at the bottom of a ravine where she has crashed en route to visit the queen. Born the same day as Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, Canadian Georgina Danforth Witley is one of ninety-nine privileged Commonwealth subjects invited to an eightieth birthday lunch at Buckingham Palace. All she has to do is drive to the airport and board the plane for London. Except that Georgie drives off the road, her car plunging into a thickly wooded ravine. Thrown from the car and unable to move, she must rely on her no-nonsense wit, her full store of family memories, and a recitation of the bones in her body -- a childhood exercise that reminds her she is still alive. As Georgina lies helpless, she reflects on her role as a daughter, mother, sister, wife, and widow -- on lost loves and painful secrets -- offering a whimsical and profound insight into the life of one ordinary woman who, while drawing on her instincts to survive, asks herself: what has it all amounted to?

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