The Secret Chord

by Geraldine Brooks

Hardcover, 2015

Description

Fiction. Literature. HTML:�??A page turner. . .Brooks is a master at bringing the past alive. . .in her skillful hands the issues of the past echo our own deepest concerns:  love and loss, drama and tragedy, chaos and brutality.�?� �?? Alice Hoffman, The Washington PostA rich and utterly absorbing novel about the life of King David, from the Pulitzer Prize�??winning author of People of the Book and March.   With more than two million copies of her novels sold, New York Times bestselling author Geraldine Brooks has achieved both popular and critical acclaim. Now, Brooks takes on one of literature�??s richest and most enigmatic figures: a man who shimmers between history and legend. Peeling away the myth to bring David to life in Second Iron Age Israel, Brooks traces the arc of his journey from obscurity to fame, from shepherd to soldier, from hero to traitor, from beloved king to murderous despot and into his remorseful and diminished dotage. The Secret Chord provides new context for some of the best-known episodes of David�??s life while also focusing on others, even more remarkable and emotionally intense, that have been neglected.  We see David through the eyes of those who love him or fear him�??from the prophet Natan, voice of his conscience, to his wives Mikhal, Avigail, and Batsheva, and finally to Solomon, the late-born son who redeems his Lear-like old age. Brooks has an uncanny ability to hear and transform characters from history, and this beautifully written, unvarnished saga of faith, desire, family, ambition, betrayal, and power will en… (more)

Publication

Little, Brown (2015), 320 pages

Media reviews

"It isn’t for me to argue with Scripture, but I will say that Geraldine Brooks’s latest novel, “The Secret Chord” — a thundering, gritty, emotionally devastating reconsideration of the story of King David — makes a masterly case for the generative power of retelling."
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"Though she offers no compelling alternative read of David, the fact that she manages to faithfully reconstruct the story is itself something of a feat, as is her evocation of a highly complex character in a manner that is at once critical and also deeply sympathetic."
"But in making David so satisfyingly human, Brooks has crafted from The Secret Chord a compelling read, contemporary in its relevance."
"From the texture of wool tunics, the fragility of clay tablets, and the easy grazing of goats to the outsized pride of the men, the unquestioned subjugation of women, and the hot brutality of the nonstop battles, Brooks’s vision of the biblical world is enrapturing."
"In many ways, “The Secret Chord” reads like a prose poem, with battle after battle recounted in detail, but it’s a page turner of a poem."
"A skillful reimagining of stories already well-known to any well-versed reader of the Bible gracefully and intelligently told."

Original publication date

2015-10-06

Physical description

320 p.; 6.5 inches

ISBN

140870451X / 9781408704516
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