Beheld - Nesbit, TaraShea Review & Synopsis

DOWNLOAD BOOK FREE HERE

Synopsis

From the bestselling author of The Wives of Los Alamos comes a riveting story of the first murder in Plymouth, Massachusetts--a crime that shook the fledging colony to its core.

It begins with a killing. Ten years after the Mayflower struck shore on rocky, unfamiliar soil, Plymouth is not the land its residents had imagined. Seemingly established on a dream of religious freedom, the town is led by fervent Puritans who prevent the Anglican residents from worshiping as they choose. The Billingtons--Anglicans, outsiders, and rebels--have just about had enough, and that's when a stranger arrives.

With gripping, immersive details and beautiful prose, TaraShea Nesbit reframes the story of the pilgrims in the historically under-recorded voices of two women of very different status and means. She evokes a vivid, ominous Plymouth, populated by famous and unknown characters alike, each with conflicting desires and questionable behavior. Suspenseful and literary, Beheld is about a murder and a trial; but it's also about the motivations--personal and political--that cause people to act in unsavory ways.

Whose stories get told over time, who gets believed--and subsequently, who gets punished? Beheld is an intimate, personal portrait of love, motherhood, and friendship, and an exploration of what people lose and what they struggle to maintain.

Review

TaraShea Nesbit is the author of The Wives of Los Alamos, which was a national bestseller, a finalist for the PEN/Bingham Prize, and a New York Times Editors' Choice, among other accolades. Her writing has been featured in Granta, Ninth Letter, The Guardian, Fourth Genre, Salon, Quarterly West, and elsewhere. She holds a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Denver. An assistant professor and Altman Scholar at Miami University, she lives in southern Ohio with her family.

"In a gripping retelling of the Plymouth colony's first murder, we finally hear the voices of women--and they speak an unvarnished truth that turns history on its pointy-hatted head. Truly a riveting read." -Helen Simonson, author of MAJOR PETTIGREW'S LAST STAND and THE SUMMER BEFORE THE WAR

"TaraShea Nesbit's Puritans are passionate and vengeful and entrancing. Part mystery, part love story, beautifully told and meticulously researched, Beheld reanimates and complicates the mythologies of America's earliest settlers. I was sad when it ended." -Anton DiSclafani, author of THE YONAHLOSSEE RIDING CAMP FOR GIRLS

"Beheld breathes fresh life into a world grown still and murky beneath the scrim of legend--rife with intrigue, fractured by difference, marked by violence, and full of haunting images. With gorgeous, period-inflected prose, Nesbit takes us back to the earliest days of New England to look through the eyes and over the shoulders of historical characters both remembered and not. I read it at a gallop. What a marvel this novel is." -Laird Hunt, author of IN THE HOUSE IN THE DARK OF THE WOODS

"A great story, and Nesbit boldly uses the first person plural to tell it . . . . She evokes the women's days in lyrical, hypnotic detail." -People on THE WIVES OF LOS ALAMOS

"The story is told by all of the women . . . together in unison as one haunting, communal voice. Impressive . . . . Together and alone and each in her separate way, the wives are left to celebrate or lament the wonder or the horror of what their town had done." -New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) on THE WIVES OF LOS ALAMOS

"The novel is historical but also intensely personal, and makes masterful use of third person plural narration. It is a must-read for anyone with an appetite for historical fiction or just a well told story . . . intimate and yet universal . . . The women in Nesbit's novel and the calm, reflective voice they embody will captivate readers from the first page to the last." -Bustle on THE WIVES OF LOS ALAMOS

"Haunting . . . fascinating . . . A powerful testament to women's strength and ability to hold a community together during a disturbing time." -Wall Street Journal on THE WIVES OF LOS ALAMOS

Beheld

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Publishers Weekly Best Fiction Book of 2020 Most Anticipated Books of 2020 -- Vogue, Medium, LitHub Honoree for the 2021 Society of Midland Authors Prize Finalist for the 2021 Ohioana Book Award in fiction A Massachusetts Book Awards “Must Read Book” From the bestselling author of The Wives of Los Alamos comes the riveting story of a stranger's arrival in the fledgling colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts--and a crime that shakes the divided community to its core. Ten years after the Mayflower pilgrims arrived on rocky, unfamiliar soil, Plymouth is not the land its residents had imagined. Seemingly established on a dream of religious freedom, in reality the town is led by fervent puritans who prohibit the residents from living, trading, and worshipping as they choose. By the time an unfamiliar ship, bearing new colonists, appears on the horizon one summer morning, Anglican outsiders have had enough. With gripping, immersive details and exquisite prose, TaraShea Nesbit reframes the story of the pilgrims in the previously unheard voices of two women of very different status and means. She evokes a vivid, ominous Plymouth, populated by famous and unknown characters alike, each with conflicting desires and questionable behavior. Suspenseful and beautifully wrought, Beheld is about a murder and a trial, and the motivations--personal and political--that cause people to act in unsavory ways. It is also an intimate portrait of love, motherhood, and friendship that asks: Whose stories get told over time, who gets believed--and subsequently, who gets punished?

With gripping, immersive details and exquisite prose, TaraShea Nesbit reframes the story of the pilgrims in the previously unheard voices of two women of very different status and means."

The Wives of Los Alamos

Their average age was twenty-five. They came from Berkeley, Cambridge, Paris, London and Chicago - and arrived in New Mexico ready for adventure or at least resigned to it. But hope quickly turned to hardship in the desolate military town where everything was a secret, including what their husbands were doing at the lab. They lived in barely finished houses with a P.O. Box for an address, in a town wreathed with barbed wire, all for the benefit of 'the project' that didn't exist as far as the greater world was concerned. They were constrained by the words they couldn't say out loud, the letters they couldn't send home, the freedom they didn't have. Though they were strangers, they joined together - babies were born, friendships were forged, children grew up. But then 'the project' was unleashed and even bigger challenges faced the women of Los Alamos, as they struggled with the burden of their contribution towards the creation of the most destructive force in mankind's history - the atomic bomb. Contentious, gripping and intimate, The Wives of Los Alamos is a personal tale of one of the most momentous events in our history.

TaraShea Nesbit . and the group moved serpent-like. The governor of the pueblo, ... above the fast drumbeat and shuffles: This is the Atomic Age—This is the Atomic Age! BY THE END A ceremony was to be held in 210 TARASHEA NESBIT ."

Wanting

* Financial Times Business Book of the Month * Next Big Idea Club Nominee * A groundbreaking exploration of why we want what we want, and a toolkit for freeing ourselves from chasing unfulfilling desires. Gravity affects every aspect of our physical being, but there’s a psychological force just as powerful—yet almost nobody has heard of it. It’s responsible for bringing groups of people together and pulling them apart, making certain goals attractive to some and not to others, and fueling cycles of anxiety and conflict. In Wanting, Luke Burgis draws on the work of French polymath René Girard to bring this hidden force to light and reveals how it shapes our lives and societies. According to Girard, humans don’t desire anything independently. Human desire is mimetic—we imitate what other people want. This affects the way we choose partners, friends, careers, clothes, and vacation destinations. Mimetic desire is responsible for the formation of our very identities. It explains the enduring relevancy of Shakespeare’s plays, why Peter Thiel decided to be the first investor in Facebook, and why our world is growing more divided as it becomes more connected. Wanting also shows that conflict does not arise because of our differences—it comes from our sameness. Because we learn to want what other people want, we often end up competing for the same things. Ignoring our large similarities, we cling to our perceived differences. Drawing on his experience as an entrepreneur, teacher, and student of classical philosophy and theology, Burgis shares tactics that help turn blind wanting into intentional wanting--not by trying to rid ourselves of desire, but by desiring differently. It’s possible to be more in control of the things we want, to achieve more independence from trends and bubbles, and to find more meaning in our work and lives. The future will be shaped by our desires. Wanting shows us how to desire a better one.

Charleston, SC: Nabu, 2012. Smee , Sebastian . The Art of Rivalry : Four Friendships , Betrayals , and Breakthroughs in Modern Art . New York: Random House, 2017. Solon, Olivia. “Richard Dawkins on the Internet's Hijacking of the Word 'Meme."

Love and Fury

A Best Novel of Summer (New York Times Book Review) From the acclaimed author of Mr. Dickens and His Carol, a richly-imagined reckoning with the life of another cherished literary legend: Mary Wollstonecraft – arguably the world’s first feminist August, 1797. Midwife Parthenia Blenkinsop has delivered countless babies, but nothing prepares her for the experience that unfolds when she arrives at Mary Wollstonecraft’s door. Over the eleven harrowing days that follow, as Mrs. Blenkinsop fights for the survival of both mother and newborn, Wollstonecraft recounts the life she dared to live amidst the impossible constraints and prejudices of the late 18th century, rejecting the tyranny of men and marriage, risking everything to demand equality for herself and all women. She weaves her riveting tale to give her fragile daughter a reason to live, even as her own strength wanes. Wollstonecraft’s urgent story of loss and triumph forms the heartbreakingly brief intersection between the lives of a mother and daughter who will change the arc of history and thought. In radiant prose, Samantha Silva delivers an ode to the dazzling life of Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the world's most influential thinkers and mother of the famous novelist Mary Shelley. But at its heart, Love and Fury is a story about the power of a woman reclaiming her own narrative to pass on to her daughter, and all daughters, for generations to come.

This illuminating story harnesses the power women have—even in the midst of loss—to change the world, one woman's story at a time. An urgent masterpiece.” — TaraShea Nesbit , author of Beheld About the Author Samantha Silva is the author ..."

Granta 144

An issue on gender and power Devorah Baum reads Grace Paley to find out what women want Stella Duffy looks for LGBT voices in the #MeToo debate Fernanda Eberstadt remembers the 70s drag scene in New York Debra Gwartney breaks her silence Ottessa Moshfegh gets what she wants TaraShea Nesbit revisits her lost childhood Brittany Newell deconstructs Paris Hilton's sex tape Lisa Wells on the process of revisiting trauma Also: new fiction from: Tara Isabella Burton, Paul Dalla Rosa, Tommi Parrish, Sally Rooney, Miriam Toews, Zoe Whittall and Leni Zumas Plus: poetry by Momtaza Mehri and Fiona Benson And photoessays by Sbastien Lifshitz and Tomoko Sawada, introduced by Andrew McMillan and Sayaka Murata

TaraShea Nesbit's first novel, The Wives of Los Alamos, was a finalist for the 2015 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize and a New York Times Editors' Choice. Her second novel, Beheld , will be published in 2020. She teaches at Miami University."

Cost of Living

From gleaning to toothaches, across anxieties and economic precarity, Womer writes with gorgeous attention to language and to sound, creating a book quivering with insights. I loved this book. -TaraShea Nesbit, author of Beheld Brenna Womer's cost of living is meditative, subtle, and moving; it bursts with surprising and dynamic language that circles familial histories, complex intimacies, class, memory, and origin. Deeply intimate and carefully observed, Womer's writing reveals the expansive possibilities of both poetry and prose. -K-Ming Chang, author of Bestiary Budgeting for Sensodyne while finding "no place, yet, to sell a memory," the narrator in Brenna Womer's hybrid collection, cost of living, knows both the heavy expense of connection and the ache of paying for one's place in the world. The weight of expectations press into the grit of love, leaving behind indelible scratches. Womer's work will leave you similarly marked. -Kristine Langley Mahler, author of Curing Season

From gleaning to toothaches, across anxieties and economic precarity, Womer writes with gorgeous attention to language and to sound, creating a book quivering with insights. I loved this book."

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Hati pria sangat berbeda dengan rahim ibu, Mariam. Rahim tak akan berdarah ataupun melar karena harus menampungmu. Hanya akulah yang kaumiliki di dunia ini, dan kalau aku mati, kau tak akan punya siapa-siapa lagi. Tak akan ada siapa pun yang peduli padamu. Karena kau tidak berarti! Kalimat itu sering kali diucapkan ibunya setiap kali Mariam bersikeras ingin berjumpa dengan Jalil, ayah yang tak pernah secara sah mengakuinya sebagai anak. Dan kenekatan Mariam harus dibayarnya dengan sangat mahal. Sepulang menemui Jalil secara diam-diam, Mariam menemukan ibunya tewas gantung diri. Sontak kehidupan Mariam pun berubah. Sendiri kini dia menapaki hidup. Mengais-ngais cinta di tengah kepahitan sebagai anak haram. Pasrah akan pernikahan yang dipaksakan, menanggung perihnya luka yang disayatkan sang suami. Namun dalam kehampaan dan pudarnya asa, seribu mentari surga muncul di hadapannya. "Sebuah cerita tentang harapan akan kemenangan, juga kekuatan menepis ketakutan. Sungguh megah!" New York Daily News "A Thousand Splendid Suns, tidak hanya menyuguhkan kepada pembaca tentang realitas Afghanistan, tetapi juga menunjukkan kemampuan dan bakat Hosseini; melodrama dari setiap plot; pelukisan yang tajam; penggambaran karakter hitam-putih; dan pengolahan emosi yang memukai." New York Post "... kisah yang sangat memilukan tentang perjuangan perempuan Afghan dalam mengarungi kerasnya hidup." Entertainment Weeklyÿ "Cerita yang mengembangkan imajinasi bagaimana menemukan kembali sebuah keteguhan hati." Houston Chronicle "... novel yang begitu menggemparkan ...." International Herald Tribune ?Sebuah cerita fiksi yang cemerlang, diprediksi akan lebih memberikan pengaruh luar biasa kepada pembaca dibandingkan The Kite Runner." London Time "Prosa Hosseini begitu menghunjam. Ia tidak hanya mengungkap sisi politik, tetapi juga sisi paling personal ...." The Guardian [Mizan, Qanita, Novel, Memoar, Indonesia]

" New York Daily News "A Thousand Splendid Suns, tidak hanya menyuguhkan kepada pembaca tentang realitas Afghanistan, tetapi juga menunjukkan kemampuan dan bakat Hosseini; melodrama dari setiap plot; pelukisan yang tajam; penggambaran ..."

Sang Harimau

Rob, who passes the time in his rural Florida community by wood carving, is drawn by his spunky but angry friend Sistine into a plan to free a caged tiger.

Rob, who passes the time in his rural Florida community by wood carving, is drawn by his spunky but angry friend Sistine into a plan to free a caged tiger."