{"id":1165,"date":"2006-03-28T19:54:02","date_gmt":"2006-03-28T19:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=1165"},"modified":"2006-03-28T19:54:02","modified_gmt":"2006-03-28T19:54:02","slug":"critic_at_large_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=1165","title":{"rendered":"Critic At Large: Case Histories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Case Histories<\/A> is ostensibly a mystery novel, but it’s really about loss, the ways in which life can violently veer out of control, and how people endure in the wake of tragedies that rob them of the ones they love.  The novel weaves together the stories of three separate families, each of them seeking ways to heal long-open wounds inflicted by another’s death or disappearance.  While Kate Atkinson paints an unflinchingly bleak and desolate picture of human existence, she imbues the book with moments of dry humor–scattered asides and observations that her characters make in the midst of even the most horrific of circumstance.  Like a lot of British writers, Atkinson understands that the world isn’t necessarily a good or safe place, but that sometimes people need to laugh in the face of its assorted cruelties. <\/DIV>
 <\/DIV>
I need to pick up my reading pace.  Next up, Stephen King’s Cell<\/EM> <\/A>or Ian McEwans’s Saturday<\/A><\/EM>, depending on my mood.  I’m also looking for nonfiction recommendations.<\/DIV><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Case Histories is ostensibly a mystery novel, but it’s really about loss, the ways in which life can violently veer out of control, and how people endure in the wake of tragedies that rob them of the ones they love.  The novel weaves together the stories of three separate families, each of them seeking ways […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-1-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Iwau-iN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}