Bret Lott's Books

A Stranger's House

By: Bret Lott

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For a long time, Claire and Tom Templeton have wished in vain for a child. What they have instead is a house, a charming old Cape that is their consolation. In the gray chill of a Massachusetts autumn, the Templetons and two local handymen, loners and eccentrics, work to rebuild the ramshackle home. As the house takes on a new life, Claire begins to understand its tangled history -- and to reconcile her own past and renew her hope for the future.

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Page Count

276

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1451667922

ISBN 13

9781451667929

The Man Who Owned Vermont

By: Bret Lott

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The Man Who Owned Vermont

By: Bret Lott

When Rick Wheeler's wife walks out on him, he nearly drowns in despair. So the RC Cola salesman throws himself into work -- setting sales records, winning a promotion, burying himself in the lonely present while he scours the past for hope. Then at last on a cold Vermont morning, a hunter and his prey show him unexpectedly, haltingly, the way back to love and faith.

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Page Count

244

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1451667914

ISBN 13

9781451667912

Before We Get Started

A Practical Memoir of the Writer's Life

By: Bret Lott

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Before We Get Started

A Practical Memoir of the Writer's Life

By: Bret Lott

This marvelous guide begins where other books on writing and the writing life leave off. Delving deep into the creative process, Bret Lott reveals truths we scarcely realized we needed to know but without which we as writers will soon lose our way. In ten intimate essays based on his own experiences and on the seasoned wisdom of writers including Eudora Welty, E. B. White, Henry David Thoreau, Henry James, and John Gardner, Lott explores such topics as • why write? why keep writing? • the importance of simple words • the finer points of character detail • narrative and the passage of time • the pitfalls of technique • making a plan–and letting it go • risking failure–and reaping the benefits • Accepting rejection Writers travel alone, but Bret Lott’s book makes the journey less lonely and infinitely more rewarding. Before We Get Started will help you make your work as good as it can be: “Pay attention recklessly. Strain to see through the window of your own artistic consciousness in the exhilarating knowledge that there is no path to the waterfall, and there are a million paths to the waterfall, and there is, too, only one path: yours.”

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Page Count

226

Publisher

Ballantine Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307804801

ISBN 13

9780307804808

A Song I Knew By Heart

A Novel

By: Bret Lott

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A Song I Knew By Heart

A Novel

By: Bret Lott

During a cold Massachusetts winter, a tragic car accident leaves a mother childless and her daughter-in-law a widow. Naomi and Ruth are now each other’s only comfort. Naomi lost her own husband eight years ago, and now she has lost her son. Carrying a deep secret in her soul, Naomi decides to return to her childhood home in coastal South Carolina. When she tells Ruth her plan, she receives an unexpected reply: “Where you go, I will go.” So the two women plan the journey together, arriving at a place that is flooded with a love they are nearly too fragile to accept. Surrounded by the warmth of their newfound family, Naomi and Ruth begin to find themselves reawakened–and open to the possibility of redemption.

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Page Count

338

Publisher

Ballantine Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0345437756

ISBN 13

9780345437754

Jewel

By: Bret Lott

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Jewel

By: Bret Lott

In the backwoods of Mississippi, a land of honeysuckle and grapevine, Jewel and her husband, Leston, are truly blessed; they have five fine children. When Brenda Kay is born in 1943, Jewel gives thanks for a healthy baby, last-born and most welcome. Jewel is the story of how quickly a life can change; how, like lightning, an unforeseen event can set us on a course without reason or compass. In this story of a woman's devotion to the child who is both her burden and God's singular way of smiling on her, Bret Lott has created a mother-daughter relationship of matchless intensity and beauty, and one of the finest, most indomitable heroines in contemporary American fiction.

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Page Count

372

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1439121915

ISBN 13

9781439121917

Reed's Beach

By: Bret Lott

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Reed's Beach

By: Bret Lott

Hugh and Laura Walker could never have anticipated that the single greatest source of joy in their lives could so suddenly fill them with such unrelenting grief. The death of their only child, seven-year-old Michael -- struck by a car just seconds after stepping off his school bus -- has left them stranded in a sea of sorrow. With no emotional compass to guide them, the Walkers retreat to an old cottage near Cape May, New Jersey, where, separated from the daily reminders of their numbing loss, they hope to reenter the world of the living. But lurking just below their sanity and resolve are memories -- not only of the simple joy that Michael brought to their lives, but also of the horror of his fatal accident. Buffeted by the conflicting winds of mourning and renewal, the Walkers see the once-solid foundation of their marriage begin to loosen. And Laura harbors a secret -- one essential to her self-preservation, but which could destroy all she and Hugh have ever been to each other. Reed's Beach weaves domestic tragedy with a strikingly original thriller of the heart, revealing the truths hidden deep within each of us, while holding out the elusive promise of love and hope.

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Page Count

354

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1439122245

ISBN 13

9781439122242

Gather the Olives

On Food and Hope and the Holy Land

By: Bret Lott

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Gather the Olives

On Food and Hope and the Holy Land

By: Bret Lott

Gather the Olives is a dangerous book. That’s because it is about peace in a time when peace in the Holy Land is a faraway, even radical notion. It is about hope and food and community and the way there can be solidarity in sharing a meal. Hence the danger: this book might remind its brave readers of how peace is nourished and how hope can’t be extinguished. Over the years, Bret Lott—the bestselling author of more than a dozen books, including the novel Jewel (an Oprah’s Book Club selection)—has lived and taught in Jerusalem, affording him the opportunity to travel throughout Israel and the surrounding area. Now, in Gather the Olives, this gifted storyteller has brought together a collection of intimate portraits of the people, the food, and the hope for peace to be found in a region ravaged by war and conflict. Through meditations on such varied matters as an olive oil cooperative run by Israeli and Palestinian women, a non-kosher butcher shop in the middle of upscale—and very kosher—German Colony, the nighttime harvesting of olives by Bedouins in downtown Jerusalem, a traditional Shabbat dinner at an ancient home within the walls of the Old City, a simple yet beautiful plate of fruit in an office in Ramallah, Bret Lott considers how food and the people with whom we share it can bring together hearts and souls in a lasting, meaningful, and peaceful way.

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Page Count

156

Publisher

Slant Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1639821643

ISBN 13

9781639821648

The Difference Between Women and Men

Stories

By: Bret Lott

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The Difference Between Women and Men

Stories

By: Bret Lott

In this deeply affecting, beautifully crafted collection of short fiction, Bret Lott broadens his stylistic range, striking a surprisingly surreal tone with stark, hyperrealistic prose. As story after dazzling story deliberately takes you down a deceptively ordinary path, the arresting center of each startles your unsuspecting sensibility. Among the narrative gems is “Family,” in which a husband and wife bicker incessantly before realizing that their two children are missing, only to discover them in a surprising place–and in a disturbing condition. In “Everything Cut Will Come Back,” a long-distance phone call between two brothers takes a turn when their own tragic past crackles over the line. In “History,” a widow thinks she spots her son at the airport and is left instead with a simple memory of her late husband that resolves her grief. The innocence of three boys is lost when they witness a devastating winter tragedy in “The Train, the Lake, the Bridge.” Within these pages, adulterers are unceremoniously caught, epiphanies arrive during bizarre encounters, and characters move through everyday moments with a fortitude that elevates these stories almost to mythical status. Without a stroke of false sentimentality, The Difference Between Women and Men will leave you strangely shaken–and ever aware of the odd permutations of humankind.

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Page Count

242

Publisher

Ballantine Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0345507150

ISBN 13

9780345507150

The Difference Between Women and Men

Stories

By: Bret Lott

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The Difference Between Women and Men

Stories

By: Bret Lott

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242

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Ballantine Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0345507150

ISBN 13

9780345507150

A Dream of Old Leaves

By: Bret Lott

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A Dream of Old Leaves

By: Bret Lott

Bret Lott's powerful, insightful stories illuminate the everyday episodes that move us -- husbands and wives, parents and children, friends and neighhors -- along the intricate paths of intimacy. A little boy's first bad dream brings his father back to his own childhood nights when danger lurked beneath the bed; in the California desert at night two brothers in a pickup tune into radio stations from distant places, interrupted by sudden bursts of static; estranged suburban friends become good neighbors again in the course of thwarting two thieves. Lott's previous novels, The Man Who Owned Vermont and A Stranger's House, established him as "one of the strongest voices to come along in some time" (The San Francisco Chronicle). A Dream of Old Leaves stakes out his place in the landscape of new American fiction.

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Page Count

159

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1451667930

ISBN 13

9781451667936

The Hunt Club

A Novel

By: Bret Lott

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The Hunt Club

A Novel

By: Bret Lott

It started with a body, the head of it pretty much gone, the hands skinned. We found it the Saturday after Thanksgiving, out to Hungry Neck Hunt Club. Uncle Leland owns the Hunt Club, which might make him sound important, or rich. But he's not. Huger Dillard is no ordinary fifteen-year-old from the Lowcountry of South Carolina. He may not have a father to help him grow up, but day-to-day guiding of his blind Uncle Leland--Unc, for short--and weekends spent at the Hunt Club have made him an expert on the habits of deer, the pompous attorneys and doctors of nearby Charleston, and the ways of the world. But with Unc's discovery of a mutilated body, Huger suddenly learns that he is expert at nothing--least of all his own life. Everything he knows and everyone he loves--Unc, his mother, his foundering teenage romance--is at risk, and Huger must use every ounce of resourcefulness and bravery to stay alive and protect what he believes in. Yet, when he finally discovers precisely what happened that Saturday morning, there is still one more secret to uncover, this one too dark, too deep, for him to even imagine. From Bret Lott, the critically acclaimed author the Los Angeles Times called "one of the most im-portant and imaginative writers in America today," The Hunt Club is a novel of deft pacing and remark-able detail, and a sultry evocation of a land and culture that has existed for generations but soon may be lost forever.

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Page Count

284

Publisher

Villard

Published Date

ISBN 10

030780481X

ISBN 13

9780307804815

A Song I Knew By Heart

A Novel

By: Bret Lott

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A Song I Knew By Heart

A Novel

By: Bret Lott

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Page Count

338

Publisher

Ballantine Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0345437756

ISBN 13

9780345437754

Letters and Life

On Being a Writer, On Being a Christian

By: Bret Lott

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Letters and Life

On Being a Writer, On Being a Christian

By: Bret Lott

Writing lays bare the soul. All serious writers know that each word reveals something significant about themselves, granting outsiders a glimpse at their most cherished beliefs and foundational convictions. In this series of intimate reflections on life and writing, critically acclaimed and best-selling novelist Bret Lott explores the author's craft through five letters covering a range of fascinating topics, from exploring the value of literary fiction to discussing the humility of Flannery O'Connor. In the final and longest letter, Lott contemplates the death of his father and his struggle to convey his complicated thoughts and inexplicable emotions in words. Intensely personal and yet universally relatable, this powerful collection of essays will encourage and enrich writers and aspiring writers everywhere.

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Page Count

194

Publisher

Crossway

Published Date

ISBN 10

1433537869

ISBN 13

9781433537868

Reed's Beach

By: Bret Lott

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Reed's Beach

By: Bret Lott

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354

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1439122245

ISBN 13

9781439122242

The Man Who Owned Vermont

By: Bret Lott

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The Man Who Owned Vermont

By: Bret Lott

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Page Count

244

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1451667914

ISBN 13

9781451667912

Ancient Highway

A Novel

By: Bret Lott

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Ancient Highway

A Novel

By: Bret Lott

From the bestselling author of Jewel and The Difference Between Women and Men comes a haunting novel of home, family, and the pursuit of lost dreams. Ancient Highway brilliantly weaves together the hopes and regrets of three characters from three generations as they reconcile who they are and who they might have been. In 1925, a fourteen-year-old boy leaves his family’s farm and hops a boxcar in a dusty Texas field, heading for Hollywood and a life in the “flickers.” In 1947, a ten-year-old girl aches for a real home with a real family in a wide-open space, far from the crowded Los Angeles streets where her handsome cowboy father chases stardom and her mother holds a secret. In 1980, a young man just out of the Navy visits his elderly yet colorful grandparents in Los Angeles, eager to uncover his family’s silent history. For the Holmeses, a longing for something else–another place, a second chance–seems to run in the family DNA. From Earl’s journey west toward Hollywood glory, to his daughter Joan’s wish for a normal existence away from the bright lights, to his grandson Brad’s yearning for truth, this deep-rooted desire sustains them, no matter how much the goal eludes them. But ultimately, in each generation, a family crisis forces a turning away from the horizon and the acceptance of a reality that is by turns harsh and healing. Inspired by stories of his own family, Bret Lott beautifully renders the lives of ordinary people with extraordinary faith in a mesmerizing and finely wrought tale of love and letting go.

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Page Count

258

Publisher

Random House

Published Date

ISBN 10

1588367118

ISBN 13

9781588367112

Fathers, Sons, & Brothers

The Men in My Family

By: Bret Lott

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Fathers, Sons, & Brothers

The Men in My Family

By: Bret Lott

The acclaimed author of "Jewel" "observes and beautifully renders those small moments that can change a life" ("The New York Times Book Review"), in this sweeping true saga of the ties that bind. Photos. Father's Day tie in.

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Page Count

212

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

0671041762

ISBN 13

9780671041762

Jewel

By: Bret Lott

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Jewel

By: Bret Lott

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372

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1439121915

ISBN 13

9781439121917

Corpus Christi

Stories

By: Bret Anthony Johnston

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Corpus Christi

Stories

By: Bret Anthony Johnston

From an acclaimed and award-winning young writer comes an intensely moving debut collection set in the eye of life’s storms. In Corpus Christi, Texas—a town often hit by hurricanes— parents, children, and lovers come together and fall apart, bonded and battered by memories of loss that they feel as acutely as physical pain. A car accident joins strangers linked by an intimate knowledge of madness. A teenage boy remembers his father’s act of sudden and self-righteous violence. A “hurricane party” reunites a couple whom tragedy parted. And, in an unforgettable three-story cycle, an illness sets in profound relief a man’s relationship with his mother and the odd, shifting fidelity of truth to love. Told in fresh, lyrical voices and taut, inventive styles, these narratives explore the complex volatility of love and intimacy, sorrow and renewal—and expose how often these experiences feel like the opposite of themselves. From the woman whose young son’s uncanny rapport with snakes illuminates her own missed opportunities to the man confronting his wife and her lover in a house full of illegal exotic birds, all the characters here face moments of profound decision and recognition in which no choice is clearly or completely right. Writing with tough humor, deep humanity, and a keen eye for the natural environment, Bret Anthony Johnston creates a world where where cataclysmic events cut people loose from their “regular lives, floating and spiraling away from where we had been the day before.” Corpus Christi is a extraordinarily ambitious debut. It marks the arrival of an important, exquisitely talented voice to American fiction.

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Page Count

290

Publisher

Random House

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307430855

ISBN 13

9780307430854

Before We Get Started

A Practical Memoir of the Writer's Life

By: Bret Lott

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Before We Get Started

A Practical Memoir of the Writer's Life

By: Bret Lott

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Page Count

226

Publisher

Ballantine Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0345478177

ISBN 13

9780345478177

Dead Low Tide

A Novel

By: Bret Lott

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Dead Low Tide

A Novel

By: Bret Lott

In this long-awaited sequel to The Hunt Club, set in the swampy South Carolina Lowcountry, New York Times bestselling author Bret Lott returns with a literary page-turner about murder and family secrets. Though Dead Low Tide continues the story of Huger Dillard, this haunting work of fiction brilliantly stands on its own. No longer a teenager and now a young man, Huger must come to terms with and confront the truth about his community, his past, and the mysterious place he calls home. While most of the residents in the wealthy, historic Charleston enclave of Landgrave Hall are asleep at two-thirty in the morning, Huger Dillard and his father, “Unc,” are heading, via jonboat, to the adjoining golf course. Blinded by a terrible accident that killed his wife, Unc prefers to practice his golf game when no one is watching. But before anyone can even tee off, Huger makes a grisly find: a woman’s body, anchored deep in the mud at the water’s low tide. The discovery sets off a chain of events that puts Huger and his family up against secret military forces, old friends, longtime neighbors, lost loves, and shadowy global networks. The only thing connecting them all is Landgrave Hall—and the treacherous reason why this area is so important to so many people.

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