John Burnham Schwartz Books In Order

Bicycle Days

When Alec Stern arrives in Japan, he discovers a land of opportunity. For only in Tokyo could an impressionable young man fresh out of college find, in one stroke, a new job, a new family, and a society that lavishes attention on Japanese speaking gaijin. Yet, even as Alec claims a place in this new world, he is haunted by memories of the one he left behind a world once infinitely secure but which disintegrated with the breakup of his parents’ marriage. In this incandescently observed novel, John Burnham Schwartz introduces readers to one of the most appealing protagonists in contemporary fiction while enchanting them with the keenness of his eye and the aptness of his voice. Through its exquisitely rendered scenes a fishing trip of Zen like serenity; a night at a sex club where giggling businessmen dive into the action and vividly imagined characters the laughing mother who taught Alec to ride a bicycle; the beautiful sad Japanese woman who teaches him how to love Bicycle Days surprises, moves, and enlightens us as very few books do.

Reservation Road

A riveting novel of feeling and suspense in which grief and punishment become tragically intertwined. At the close of a beautiful summer day near the quiet Connecticut town where they live, the Learner family Ethan and Grace, their children, Josh and Emma stop at a gas station on their way home from a concert. Josh Learner, lost in a ten year old’s private world, is standing at the edge of the road when a car comes racing around the bend. He is hit and instantly killed. The car speeds away. From this moment forward, Reservation Road becomes a harrowing countdown to the confrontation between two very different men. The hit and run driver is a small town lawyer named Dwight Arno, a man in desperate need of a second chance. Dwight is also the father of a ten year old boy, who was asleep in the car the night Josh Learner was killed. Now Dwight must decide whether to run from his crime or to pay the price for what he did. Ethan Learner, a respected professor of literature at a small New England college, has seen his orderly world shattered in a single moment, yet persists in the belief that he can find the unknown man who killed his son. Behind their stories are those of eight year old Emma, who can’t stop thinking her brother’s death was her fault, and of Grace, who must find the strength to keep herself and her family together, and to be the mother Emma so badly needs. In a gripping narrative woven from the voices of Ethan, Dwight, and Grace, Reservation Road tells the story of two ordinary families facing an extraordinary crisis a book that reads like a thriller but opens up a world rich with psychological nuance and emotional wisdom. Reservation Road explores the terrain of grief even as it astonishes with unexpected redemption: powerful and wrenching and impossible to put down.

Claire Marvel

With the publication of his second novel, Reservation Road, John Burnham Schwartz established himself as a superb storyteller as well as a writer of extraordinary grace and stunning perception. The novel was hailed by Rosellen Brown as a ‘shattering book, imagined with startling emotional precision and generosity.’ And the New York Times Book Review called it ‘a triumph of form, pacing and power.’ Now, with Claire Marvel, Schwartz brings readers into a world so real and beautifully drawn that one does not want the story to end.A chance meeting in a rainstorm becomes a defining moment of transforming emotion for graduate students Claire Marvel and Julian Rose, two people whose hearts have long been protected behind walls of wit, intelligence, and innate caution. Neither could imagine what lies in store for them: the unexpected unfolding over a dozen years of a great and difficult love. Moving between Cambridge, Massachusetts, New York City, and the hushed, timeless countryside of France, John Burnham Schwartz explores the many aspects of emotional commitment and the fear of giving oneself to another in father son relationships, in marriage, and in the ecstasy and elation of an elusive but compelling passion. Here is a novel that plumbs with wisdom and compassion the hidden regrets, enduring hopes, and guiding mysteries of a bond stronger than reason. Masterfully written, Claire Marvel is a love story for our time, and a brilliant achievement.

The Commoner

It is 1959 when Haruko, a young woman of good family, marries the Crown Prince of Japan, the heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne. She is the first non aristocratic woman to enter the longest running, almost hermetically sealed, and mysterious monarchy in the world. Met with cruelty and suspicion by the Empress and her minions, Haruko is controlled at every turn. The only interest the court has in her is her ability to produce an heir. After finally giving birth to a son, Haruko suffers a nervous breakdown and loses her voice. However, determined not to be crushed by the imperial bureaucrats, she perseveres. Thirty years later, now Empress herself, she plays a crucial role in persuading another young woman a rising star in the foreign ministry to accept the marriage proposal of her son, the Crown Prince. The consequences are tragic and dramatic.

Told in the voice of Haruko, meticulously researched and superbly imagined, The Commoner is the mesmerizing, moving, and surprising story of a brutally rarified and controlled existence at once hidden and exposed, and of a complex relationship between two isolated women who, despite being visible to all, are truly understood only by each other. With the unerring skill of a master storyteller, John Burnham Schwartz has written his finest novel yet.

Northwest Corner

From John Burnham Schwartz, one of the our most compelling and compassionate writers, comes a riveting novel about the complex, fierce, ultimately inspiring resilience of families in the face of life’s most difficult and unexpected challenges. Twelve years after a tragic accident and a cover up that led to prison time, Dwight Arno, at fifty, is a man who has started over without exactly moving on. Living alone in California, Dwight manages a sporting goods store and dates a woman to whom he hasn t revealed the truth about his past. Then Sam, Dwight s estranged college age son, shows up without warning, fleeing a devastating incident in his own life. As the two men are forced to confront their similar natures and their half buried hopes for connection, they must also search for redemption in their attempts to rewrite, outrun, or eradicate the past. Look for special features inside. Join the Circle for author chats and more. RandomHouseReadersCircle. com