The Spectator Bird
The Spectator Bird is a 1976 novel by Wallace Stegner. It won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1977, one of the two most prestigious literary awards in the United States.[1]
The book tells the story of retired literary agent Joe Allston, who receives a postcard from an old friend, a Danish countess named Astrid. Joe initially hides the postcard from his wife, Ruth. However, he soon reveals to her not only its existence but that of a diary Joe kept twenty years before, when Joe and Ruth met Astrid while visiting Denmark. The Allstons took the trip in the wake of the death of their only child, Curtis, with whom Joe fought constantly.
Stegner moves the novel's narration back and forth between the present day, as Joe struggles with the physical and emotional degradations of older age, and Denmark, where Joe and Ruth get caught up in the strange, almost Gothic world of Astrid and her ostracized aristocratic family. It transpires that Joe became romantically involved with Astrid—to what degree Ruth hopes to find out—and still has unresolved feelings about her. The novel is both an intriguing, witty observation of Americans returning to the "old country" during post-World War II Europe, as well as a deep meditation on the blessings and frustrations of a long marriage.
References
- ^ "National Book Awards – 1977". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-29.
(With essay by Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)
Awards | ||
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Preceded by J R William Gaddis | National Book Award for Fiction 1977 | Succeeded by Blood Tie Mary Lee Settle |
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- Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone (1975)
- The Hair of Harold Roux by Thomas Williams (1975)
- J R by William Gaddis (1976)
- The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner (1977)
- Blood Tie by Mary Lee Settle (1978)
- Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien (1979)
- Sophie's Choice by William Styron (1980)
- The World According to Garp by John Irving (1980)
- Plains Song: For Female Voices by Wright Morris (1981)
- The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (1981)
- Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike (1982)
- So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell (1982)
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1983)
- The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty (1983)
- Victory Over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist (1984)
- White Noise by Don DeLillo (1985)
- World's Fair by E. L. Doctorow (1986)
- Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann (1987)
- Paris Trout by Pete Dexter (1988)
- Spartina by John Casey (1989)
- Middle Passage by Charles Johnson (1990)
- Mating by Norman Rush (1991)
- All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (1992)
- The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (1993)
- A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis (1994)
- Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth (1995)
- Ship Fever and Other Stories by Andrea Barrett (1996)
- Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (1997)
- Charming Billy by Alice McDermott (1998)
- Waiting by Ha Jin (1999)
- Complete list
- (1950–1974)
- (1975–1999)
- (2000–2024)
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