具体描述
The Philadelphia Inquirer said of Susan
Kenney s novel In Another Country that it
"may signal the most breathtaking literary
achievement of the year," and Anne Tyler
wrote that Kenney "has created a dis-
tinguished novel." Sailing. a sequel to
that book, is an even more moving portrayal
of enduring love and courage in the face of
mortality. In its pages Sara and Phil Boyd,
the married couple of her earlier novel,
together and individually struggle over
the course of several years to survive the
physical and mental upheaval of Phil s life-
threatening illness. It is a novel of great
emotional power, poignant beauty-
glorious prose on sailing itself graces the
book- and astonishing intimacy. By the end
of Sailing one knows the absolute best and
worst about Phil and Sara, and understands
how desperate circumstances can elicit the
frantic, terrified worst and the stoical, heroic
best from two ordinary people. Here is a
portrait of a marriage whose inspiration
rings utterly true, for what husband and wife
will not see themselves, again and again, in
Phil and Sara?
For Sara, sailing was first a gift to Phil,
an earnest symbol of her belief that he
would survive the crisis of his mortal ill-
ness another summer; later it becomes
a sign of their increasing distance. For Phil,
sailing is both self-discovery and escape -
from his fears, his sense of being a one-man
medical research project, and from Sara s
constant vigilance; ultimately his lonely
personal voyage will become a literal one.
For readers, Sailing will be an experience
never to be forgotten, an indelible work of
literary art and emotional wisdom and
understanding. It confirms Susan Kenney s
stature as a novelist.of uncommon accom-
plishment and brilliant human insight.
