Train Home - Softcover

Back from her foray into the multigenerational saga (Daughters of the New World, 1992), Shreve returns with the mix of ingredients that has served her so well in the past: troubled families, dark secrets, and the irresistible, nearly magical forces of fate and love. Will Huston, an actor from Dublin, has arrived in Washington, D.C., with his heart set on revenge. Many years earlier his beloved younger brother was killed in Northern Ireland by a man who now works in Washington. Will, disguising himself as a priest, plans to gain access to the man's home and shoot him. Annie Blakemore, the mother of two young children and a sometime-opera singer, spots Will in his priest's garb and begins to follow him. It happens that priests are the source of a longtime fascination, perhaps even obsession, for Annie, who harbors guilt for a car accident that has left her husband, Adam, an embittered paraplegic. Annie is no stranger in the art of disguise herself. She enjoys assuming a variety of hats and poses, onstage and off. During the course of the next several days, Will and Annie cross paths several times, but always incognito, never as themselves. Meanwhile, for both, the backstage tensions mount. Will's revenge plan is about to be acted out. Adam's behavior, always menacing, grows truly alarming. Finally, it's exit stage left for both Will and Annie. When the masks come off, there aren't many surprises--at least for us--but the music is sweet. Another box-office hit for Shreve fans. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In a bold but ultimately unsuccessful departure from such previous novels as Daughters of the New World , Shreve tries for the magical tone of Shakespearean romance but ends up with a thin plot whose improbable coincidences accord poorly with her protagonists' grim experiences. Set in contemporary Washington, D.C., the tale begins as opera singer Annie Blakemore, dashing to catch the metro back to her home in Tenleytown, sees and is instantly attracted to a handsome man in priest's garb. Impulsively, she follows him when he exits the train; as their paths cross and recross over the course of three days, Shreve reveals the pair's individual histories. He is actually an Irish actor, Will Huston, who has journeyed to America to avenge the death of his brother Jamey, shot during a 1969 civil rights march in Ulster. Annie, the daughter of a drunken migrant worker, is saddled with a vindictive, wheelchair-bound husband who terrorizes her and their children with frightening psychological game-playing. Neither the departure of Annie's husband nor Will's confrontation with the man who killed Jamey resolves any of the emotional issues the story has raised, and few sparks are struck when the lovers-to-be finally meet (in the last chapter) on a train bound for New York. The author's desire to take risks and strike out in a new direction is admirable, but this novel is a disappointment. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates; author tour.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.