About Grace

Beautifully written and compelling, About Grace is the brilliant debut novel from Anthony Doerr. Growing up in Alaska, young David Winkler is crippled by his dreams. At nine, he dreams a man is decapitated by a passing truck on the path outside his family’s home. The next day, unable to prevent it, he witnesses an exact replay of his dream in real life. The premonitions keep coming, unstoppably. He sleepwalks during them, bringing catastrophe into his reach. Then, as unstoppable as a vision, he falls in love, at the supermarket (exactly as he already dreamed) with Sandy. They flee south, landing in Ohio, where their daughter Grace is born. And then the visions of Grace’s death begin for Winkler, as their waterside home is inundated. Plagued by the same horrific images of Grace drowning, when the floods come, he cannot face his destiny and flees. He beaches on a remote Caribbean island, where he works as a handyman, chipping away at his doubts and hopes, never knowing whether Grace survived the flood or met the doom he foretold. After two decades, he musters the strength to find out…

‘'I loved this wonderful book – its strangeness, its obsessiveness, its beautiful sentences.' Monica Ali ’Doerr's sublime renditions of Winkler's attunement to the world around him turn his story into a prolonged epiphany, a blissful parable about grace. This is a formidable literary achievement that, link Winkler's snow crystals, integrates facets and dimensions into near-perfect whole.' Independent ‘Doerr's gifts as a stylist are powerfully in evidence: his writing is crystalline, his attention to detail intense and evocative. That Doerr is a writer of exceptional gifts is not in question,and there is much to admire in this novel.' Daily Telegraph 'Doerr writes wonderfully, lyrically, of the natural world, and his observations of water, snowflakes and clouds illuminate this impressive debut.' Guardian ‘Exceptional first novel. I hesitate to say this book will take your breath away because it's such a cliché; but, really, I promise you, it will… I can't remember when a novel so entranced me. The only criticism I can really muster – and it is rather a limp one – is that About Grace is almost inhumanely faultless; almost, but, even then, not quite.' Evening Standard ’In careful, measured prose conjures a sense of awe both humbling and salutary. It has the bleak, lucid beauty of a day of midwinter light. At its best when describing the minute, disregarded miracles of the natural world, it lingers in the mind like one of the protagonist's eerie dreams.' Daily Mail ‘About Grace is an intriguing exploration of fate and chance’ The Times

Anthony Doerr’s published his first book, ‘The Shell Collector’, a collection of short stories in 2002. He is 32 and lives in Idaho, where he is Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Boise State University.