Nancy Huston

Merritt Fowler is a natural caretaker. Most of her life she has cared for her beautiful, erratic younger sister, Laura; her self-sacrificing physician husband, Pom; and her lovely, fragile sixteen-year-old daughter, Glynn. Now, in this strange summer of unnaturally warm weather and growing pressures, she is caring too for her husband's destructive, controlling mother, who is ill with advanced Alzheimer's disease. Exhausted and confused, Merritt no longer knows quite who she is or what is important to her. She only knows that something deep inside is about to crack. A fierce family quarrel sends Glynn running west from Atlanta to seek sanctuary with her aunt Laura, a fine actress whose promising Hollywood career is in decline. Merritt goes after her daughter - against Pom's wishes and in the face of his anger - and she impulsively decides to stay in California to see if the widening fissures between mother, sister, and daughter can be healed. After a head-on collision with Laura's shallow, seductive Hollywood world and her betraying film director lover, the three women end up in Laura's red Mustang convertible, barreling up the wild coast from the Palm Springs Desert to the Santa Cruz Mountains outside San Francisco - earthquake country. In a borrowed lodge among the great redwoods, they finally stop to confront one another and their own demons.

Sur un lit d'hôpital, Milo s'éteint lentement. A son chevet, le réalisateur new-yorkais Paul Schwarz rêve d'un ultime projet commun : un film qu'ils écriraient ensemble à partir de l'incroyable parcours de Milo. Dans un grand mouvement musical pour chanter ses origines d'abord effacées puis peu à peu recomposées, ce film suivrait trois lignes de vie qui, traversant guerres et exils, invasions et résistances, nous plongeraient dans la tension insoluble entre le Vieux et le Nouveau Monde, le besoin de transmission et le rêve de recommencement. Du début du XXe siècle à nos jours, de l'Irlande au Canada, de la chambre sordide d'une prostituée indienne aux rythmes lancinants de la capoeira brésilienne, d'un hôpital catholique québecois aux soirées prestigieuses de New York, cette histoire d'amour et de renoncement est habitée d'un bout à l'autre par le bruissement des langues et l'engagement des coeurs. Film ou roman, roman d'un film, Danse noire est l'oeuvre totale, libre et accomplie d'une romancière au sommet de son art. [4e de couv.]

"Lin has a husband, two daughters, close friends, and dance. Inexorably dance - both her passion and her profession - imposes itself on her, and finally the day comes when she has to choose between family life in a New England college town and a career on the world's leading stages. Slow Emergencies opens with an unforgettable scene of childbirth, evokes a world of loving connection between a woman, a man, and their children, and then describes an irresistible impulse to create a distance, and to depart. Lin's inner turmoil is rendered with compassion and understanding, and Huston writes about the unfathomable workings of time, the joys and terrors of motherhood, the unspeakable solitude of artistic endeavor, the beauty and vulnerability of the human body, the power of natural cycles, and the enigmatic imprint of family destiny."--BOOK JACKET.

After escaping from the Republic s stronghold, Day and June are on the run in Vegas when the country learns that their Elector Primo has died and his son has stepped in to take his place. They meet up with the rebel stronghold of the Patriots a large organization straddling the line between the Republic and its warring neighbor, the Colonies and learn about an assassination plot against the Elector. Using threats and blackmail to get what he wants, the Patriots leader, Razor, convinces June to let herself be captured by Republic soldiers so she can win over the Elector and feed him a decoy assassination plan. But when June realizes that the new Elector is nothing like his father, she must work with Day to try to stop the Patriots plot before Razor can fulfill his own devastating plans.

I didn’t plan on stumbling into Tommy, the muscle of the Valetti crime family. He warns me to stay away, but holds the key to everything I need. All of this started because I wanted the truth. I need answers to numb the pain of my past. It was never supposed to be anything else. He makes me beg when I’ve never pleaded with anyone for a d*mn thing. He makes me crave something I never imagined. He makes me wish I could hold on to this moment and forget everything else. He’s a thug, a mistake, and everything I need…

Screenwriter Milo Noirlac is dying. He lies in the dark of his hospital room, voices from Milo's past and present - real and imagined - swirl about his head, each taking on the rhythm of his favourite Brazilian fight-dance, the capoiera. Seated next to him, Milo's partner, bumptious director Paul Schwartz, coaxes Milo through his life story, from the abuse he suffered as a foster child to his lost heritage - his great-grandfather's ostentatious wealth. As Milo narrates, his story becomes the couple's final screenplay, the movie that will be their masterpiece.

"After a troubled childhood and two failed marriages, Rena Greenblatt has achieved success as a photographer. She specializes in infrared techniques that expose her pictures' otherwise hidden landscapes and capture the raw essence of deeply private moments in the lives of her subjects. Away from her lover, and stuck in Florence, Italy, with her infuriating stepmother and her aging, unwell father, Rena confronts not only the masterpieces of the Renaissance but the banal inconveniences of a family holiday. At the same time, she finds herself traveling into dark and passionate memories that will lead to disturbing revelations."--Page 4 of cover.

"The year is 1957, and the place is Paris where the psychic wounds of World War II have barely begun to heal. In this novel of love, betrayal and the ironies of history, we meet Saffie, a distant and damaged young German woman and her employer, Raphael, a priveleged musician who finds her remove irresistable. When Saffie meets a Hungarian instrument maker living in the Marais, Paris's Jewish quarter, all their lives will be altered in startling and unexpected ways. But even as she learns to reconnect and to love, the rising tide of violence from the brutal war for Algerian independence threatens to engulf them."--BOOK JACKET.

In a legal hearing concerning the death of a man named Cosmo, many strange witnesses, including dead people and inanimate objects, give testimonies. Cosmo is revealed to be very empathetic, so gifted at mirroring others that he loses sight of himself.

"Dans un pays situé quelque part au nord d'un continent puissant, naît un enfant très sensible, surdoué, inquiet. Quand son père quitte la maison, n'ayant plus en tant que pêcheur le droit d'exercer son métier sur un océan surexploité, le jeune Varian perd pied. Quelque temps plus tard, sans plus aucune nouvelle il part à la recherche de ce père sacrifié, est embauché dans cet autre monde où le sol est sondé, retourné bouleversé, le sable violenté comme les êtres."--

Artiste et reporter-photographe, Rena Greenblatt rejoint a Florence son pere Simon et sa belle-mere Ingrid pour une semaine de promenades parmi les splendeurs de la Renaissance. Mais l'idylle n'est pas au rendez-vous. Naguere scientifique brillant, Simon est desormais un homme fatigue a l'elocution hesitante, et sa femme -- solide nature batave -- semble peu receptive aux chefs-d'¿uvre toscans. Le couple parental traine la patte. Et Rena, toute au regret de Paris et de son jeune amant Aziz, s'impatiente. Alors lui viennent quantite de souvenirs, fantasmes et pensees secretes qu'elle ne petit partager qu'avec Subra, son "amie speciale", son double, son invisible confidente. Seule Subra sait a quels infrarouges reagit Rena : desir et dechirements de la maternite, beaute et liberte du sexe, emotion devant les corps masculins debarrasses de leurs oripeaux machistes, et que Rena adore photographier dans l'abandon de la jouissance ... Des chapitres vifs et brefs melent present et passe, revoltes en banlieue parisienne (on est en octobre 2005) et insurrection intime, retours du refoule -- l'enfance emerveillee et endolorie, l'adolescence saccagee -- et mirages de la clairvoyance. Ainsi, infrarouge raconte deux voyages : celui, desopilant, de vacances ratees, et celui, plus sombre et passionne, qui explore les liens et les conflits familiaux, les codes feminin et masculin, les archetypes trompeurs et les verites inavouees. -- Back cover.