Anita Shreve’s Rescue is a simple story, well told.  Having listened to Shreve’s four last novels, I was pleasantly surprised by this latest, which has an elegance and directness the others lacked.  It starts about 19 years ago, when Pete Webster meets Sheila.  He is an EMT in Vermont, and he spends most of his time rushing to people going through medical emergencies and getting them to hospital.  He is a competent man who is good at providing reassurance.  Sheila is very different: they meet after she had a car accident because she was drinking.  They begin a passionate affair and she soon gets pregnant.  But she is a drinker, and Webster worries about whether she will be a good mother to their daughter Rowan.  They marry even though there’s clearly trouble ahead for the couple, so it is no surprise (to the reader, at least) when she starts drinking again.  After a car accident that splits the family apart, the story skips to Rowan’s senior year in high school.  Webster’s daughter is starting to be wild, and she is also drinking.  Webster doesn’t know how to handle the problem, and he worries that Rowan will lose control as Sheila did.  While the book does not have the same ambition in addressing large themes as Shreve’s other recent books, it gives a clear and sympathetic portrait of a man who struggles with life’s difficulties.  The descriptions of his visits to accident scenes and the homes of people who have suddenly fallen ill are especially potent.  It’s a touching, even moving, novel.  The performance of the unabridged audiobook by Dennis Holland achieves a balance between drama and calm, and is very enjoyable. 

Link: Author web site

© 2011 Christian Perring        

Christian Perring, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dowling College, New York