Restlessness: A Novel

Front Cover
Red Deer College Press, 1998 - Fiction - 193 pages

Desperate to find a home, a restless, wandering woman determines that the only way she can appease her terrible homesickness is to occupy the still center of death. Unable to commit suicide, she hires a professional killer and contracts him to murder her, by her choice and on her terms.

Restlessness chronicles their meeting and its unexpected story and outcome. In an effort to dissuade the woman from death, her killer elicits from her stories about her travels.

In this reversal of Sheherazade, who saves her life through a continuous story, Restlessness becomes a story about how to avoid story, a travel book about how to evade travel, a manual for how to stay put. Breathtaking in the tension of its incipient murder, this novel will not permit the reader to break the thread of watching and waiting that both death and travel conjure.

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Contents

Section 1
6
Section 2
7
Section 3
8
Copyright

29 other sections not shown

Common terms and phrases

ARITHA VAN HERK arms assassin bathroom bellhop Benedictine body breath building Calgary camera chair change film chinook chinook wind CHRISTINA ROSSETTI chuckles close coffee comfort corner course curtains dear death Derrick Atman Dog Sleeps door drawers dream edge elevator eyes face feel feet fingers floor gesture ghosts glass gloves guest hair hand head hold hotel room hotel stories imagine irredentist kill killer laugh leave lift light look lover Luxor MONTY REID museum never night Palliser person photograph pretend pull pyramids Red Deer College refused remember restaurants restless Sachertorte seems shoes smell smile someone stand stare stay step stone stop story strange street suitcase Tante Katje tell terrible There's touch tourist Trieste trying turn Vienna voyeurism waiting waitress walk watching wind window woman women wonder

About the author (1998)

Aritha van Herk was born in central Alberta, and studied at the University of Alberta. She first rose to international literary prominence with the publication of Judith, which received the Seal First Novel Award and which was published in North America, the United Kingdom and Europe. She is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, and a Professor who teaches Canadian Literature and Creative Writing in the Department of English at the University of Calgary.

Bibliographic information

TitleRestlessness: A Novel
Fiction Series
AuthorAritha Van Herk
Editionreprint
PublisherRed Deer College Press, 1998
ISBN0889951853, 9780889951853
Length193 pages
Subjects › 

Fiction / Action & Adventure
Fiction / General
Fiction / Psychological
  
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