It Happened on Thanksgiving
Annotation:"...a teasing, lacerating fable about a new widower maddened by grief ...Dibdin's title turns out to be accurate after all: a tribute to the power of grace and gratitude to transform even the most blasted lives." - Kirkus
Place a Hold
Annotation:" It is Thanksgiving 1962. Kennedy is president but all that is Willow Falls is evocative of Eisenhower and Father Knows Best. The Dunbars, with Matt, are celebrating when word comes that young Louisa Lindahl has been shot by her boyfriend and has gone missing. ... The introspective, insightful and reflective narrative unfolds from Matt's adult perspective, easily inferred early but not confirmed until the conclusion. A literary tale chronicling the painful struggle required of a boy to birth himself as a man." - Kirkus.
Annotation:"Bausch elevates familial squabbling to an art form, offering a funny, tender look at a small group of small-town Virginians whose lives intersect, collide, and regroup around the 1999 Thanksgiving holiday." - Library Journal.
Annotation:"Rivaling sisters search for family truths over a Thanksgiving holiday ... Berne cooks up a literary feast. Her tactile descriptions and enigmatic characters saturate the story and provide a filling repast. The plot can be frustrating at times—it's a struggle to discern past from present and truth from fiction. But this is intentional. Berne prefers questions to answers.This substantial tale of a dysfunctional family reunion promises a holiday, and a read, to remember." - Kirkus
Annotation:"Frank Bascombe, previously seen in he Sportswriter (1986) and the Pulitzer-winning Independence Day (1995), finds the beleaguered everyman in the "Permanent Period" of his life, where he's trying mightily to deal with present circumstances while dodging past regrets. But it's Thanksgiving week, "the time of year when things go wrong if they're going to." ... Ford crafts a mesmerizing narrative voice--one that gives us, with offhanded eloquence and a kind of grim mirth," - Booklist.
Annotation:"God Himself delivers the prolog, chuckling at the representatives of humankind getting together for a Thanksgiving dinner below in New Hampshire...A compelling read." - Library Journal.
Annotation:"In this beautifully observed debut, a son wrestles with the possibility of assisted suicide for his mother, stricken with Alzheimer's ... Back home for Thanksgiving, he is thinking seriously about a mercy killing, but his father Rodney, a retired office manager, is dead set against the idea. ... A novel about hard choices and doing the right thing that is modest, moving and true." - Kirkus.
Annotation:"No one would expect the Olsons to be involved in a bloody crime dubbed the Thanksgiving Day Massacre. ... an absorbing and suspenseful story about the dynamics of family, generational misunderstandings, and the desperate ways one copes with both the arbitrariness of fate and the consequences of one's choices." - Library Journal.
Annotation:"...an attack on Minnesota’s Mall of America during Black Friday, the big retailing day after Thanksgiving, ... peppers the breathless action with enough intel to make the premise scarily real." - Publisher's Weekly.
Annotation:Included here for Joyce Carol Oates' story "Thanksgiving," featuring the most horrifying shopping trip you'll ever take.
Annotation:" Capote's brilliantly polished reminiscence makes a moving holiday read-aloud for older children." - Publisher's Weekly.
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Description
O Henry wrote "There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American." Something about the fiction of Thanksgiving attests to that, for better and worse. Often more haunting that heartwarming, these are the stories of Thanksgiving.