Language English Originally published 2014 Publisher W. W. Norton & Company | ISBN 978-0-393-07373-7 | |
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Similar This Will Be Difficult to Explain, The Sentimentalists, The Description of the Wo, I Do Not Think that I Could Lo, Sometimes We Think You Are a | ||
Quartet for the End of Time is a 2014 novel by Giller Prize–winning author Johanna Skibsrud. The novel takes its name and structure from Quatuor pour la fin du temps a piece of chamber music by the French composer Olivier Messiaen.
Contents
Structure
Like the musical piece it takes its name from, the novel is divided into 7 sections and an interlude with each section told from the point of view of either Sutton, Douglas or Alden.
Plot
Sutton Kelly, a judge's daughter, is coerced into covering for her brother Alden by their father after Alden becomes involved in a communist plot to blow up the National Mall.
Reception
The novel received mixed reviews with the Toronto Star calling it a "distracted, meandering, at times opaque novel" and criticizing Skibsrud for being "prone to amateur mistakes." In the New York Times Skibsrud's technique was criticized as feeling "artificial, as if the emotional consequences of her characters’ actions are being thrown out willy-nilly to see which ones stick." However a critic at the Globe and Mail praised the novel calling it a "strange, deeply compassionate, and beautiful work."