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    A Ship Made of Paper: A Novel
    Unavailable
    A Ship Made of Paper: A Novel
    Unavailable
    A Ship Made of Paper: A Novel
    Ebook463 pages8 hours

    A Ship Made of Paper: A Novel

    By Scott Spencer

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Daniel Emerson lives with Kate Ellis, and he is like a father to her daughter, Ruby. But he cannot control his desire for Iris Davenport, the African-American woman whose son is Ruby's best friend. During a freak October blizzard, Daniel is stranded at Iris's house, and they begin a sexual liaison that eventually imperils all their relationships, Daniel's profession, their children's well-being, their own race-blindness, and their view of themselves as essentially good people.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061862434
    Unavailable
    A Ship Made of Paper: A Novel
    Author

    Scott Spencer

    Scott Spencer is the author of twelve novels, including Endless Love,Waking the Dead, A Ship Made of Paper, and Willing. He has taught at Columbia University, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Williams College, the University of Virginia, and at Eastern Correctional Facility as part of the Bard Prison Initiative. He lives in upstate New York.

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    Reviews for A Ship Made of Paper

    4/5

    10 ratings7 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Quite a dramatic story about Daniel Emerson, who wants to start a new life. Soon after starting this new life, he falls for another woman whose child is Daniel's live-in-girlfriend's child's best friend. What could possibly go wrong? This book deals with following desire no matter where it lead.
    • 4/5
      In "A Ship Made of Paper" Scott Spencer writes knowingly about transactions of the heart, and how ruinous the heart's hegemony is. This book has elegant touches, like the freak snowstorm that devastates the neighborhood's trees on the disastrous night when the protaganist, Daniel Freeman, gives in and starts his affair. It's the wrong time for all this moisture - the regular, proper life in the area cannot take it, and neither can the humanity in the story. By novel's end, Daniel, who surrendered to his passion, is wasting away, his law practice with him, and he is blind in one eye.I honor Spencer for his truth and dexterity with this subject. The heart may wreak havoc on all its subjects. This is clearly worth the time and effort.
    • 5/5
      After a shattering incident of violence is perpetrated against him, lawyer Daniel Emerson leaves New York City and returns to the Hudson River town where he grew up. There, along with his partner Kate Ellis and her young daughter, Ruby, Daniel settles into the kind of secure and comfortable family life he always longed for during his emotionally barren childhood. However, he ultimately cannot control his desire for Iris Davenport, an African-American woman whose son is Ruby's best friend.During a freak October blizzard, Daniel is stranded at Iris' house, and they spend the night together - beginning a sexual liaison that eventually imperils all their relationships, Daniel's profession, their children's well-being, their own race-blindness, and their view of themselves as essentially good people. The emotional stakes are raised even higher when Iris' husband, Hampton, suffers a devastating accidental injury at Daniel's hands.Scott Spencer is a new author to me and this actually is the first book by this author that I've read. Reading this story was quite complex for me; there were many layers to it that caused me to read this book slowly - savoring it until I had reached the last page. Ultimately, I thoroughly enjoyed reading A Ship Made of Paper: A Novel from beginning to end. I give this book a definite A+! and have already put three more books by Scott Spencer on my Wish List.
    • 4/5
      And as for Kate: she is suffering, but how can he protect her from it, how can he even soothe her when he himself is misery's messenger? The unmentionable truth is that he has moved on. No. Worse. He has moved up. He has entered a higher plane of feeling, a higher plane of devotion, and a higher plane of pleasure. How can he make Kate understand this? He is not only leaving her, he is leaving himself, leaving everything familiar behind, he is slipping over the border with only the clothes on his back.Daniel is a lawyer in a small town a hundred miles north of New York city, who meets and grows infatuated with Iris, the mother of his step-daughter's best friend. She's the only black woman in town and Daniel is fascinated by her. His wife, Kate, knows he's interested in Iris, but trusts him. Iris's husband is too involved in his own life to notice anything.A Ship Made of Paper tells the story of an affair, how Daniel is willing to throw away everything to be with Iris. It's also a story about race, how we haven't come quite as far as we think we have. Set against the backdrop of the O.J. Simpson trial, Spencer shows how different people framed the story in completely different ways and how those differences fell almost entirely along color lines.The book is very well-written and I can see why it was a contender for the National Book Award, but it isn't a comfortable read. How does a person justify hurting the people they love?"You know, Kate says, pouring herself more wine, less judiciously this time, "people think that love is what's best in each of us, our capacity to love, our need for love. They think love is like God, and they worship their own feelings of love, which is really just narcissism masquerading as spirituality. You understand? If we say that God is love, then we can say that love is God, and that gives us the right to all these chaotic, needy, lusting, insane feelings inside of ourselves. We can call it love, and from there it's just a hop, skip and a jump to calling it God. But here's a thought. What if God isn't love? And love isn't God? What if all those emotions we call love turn out to be what's really worst in us, what is it's all the firings of the foulest, most primitive part of the back brain, what if it's just as savage and selfish as rage or greed or lust?"
    • 3/5
      A sharp study of infidelity. Daniel's life starts to unravel after he falls head-over-heels for Iris. His family, integrity and career are all sacrificed to his unquenchable desire. Tragedy, passion and obsession.
    • 5/5
      If you love character-driven novels, then this is definitely a book for you. The characters and their relationships are so complex; however, you're never truly sure you can trust them or that they're being completely honest with themselves.
    • 2/5
      I don't know ... This book just didn't sit well with me. At times I felt lik it must be taking place in 1950 but it talks about the OJ trial. Maybe I'm too naive, but I just didn't get this book or understand much of why the characters did/said/felt/etc what they did/felt/said/etc and really I finished it just so I could be done with it. But about halfway through, I put it down, and almost never picked it back up because I didn't really care how it ended.