Unless Audiobook

Quotes

• “All novelists worth their fictional salt can create fine characters; Carol Shields creates lives.”

  — New York Times Book Review

• “Nothing short of astonishing.”

  — New Yorker

• “Some hefty perceptions, fortunately shared with us in this fine novel.”

  — Washington Post Book World

• “The icing on the cake is the ending, which introduces a startling but believable twist to the plight of a young woman who, in doing nothing…has claimed everything. The result is a landmark book that constitutes yet another noteworthy addition to Shields's impressive body of work.”

  — Publishers Weekly

• “A superb new novel…a graceful coda, an arabesque performed over an abyss.”

  — Time

• “A thing of beauty—lucidly written, artfully ordered, riddled with riddles and undergirded with dark layers of philosophical meditations.”

  — Los Angeles Times

• “A novel of…assured intelligence and defiant vivacity.”

  — San Francisco Chronicle

• “Unless succeeds beautifully…Shields [is] an expert at illuminating the complicated dynamics of off-kilter families.”

  — Atlanta Journal Constitution

• “Truly, a miracle of language and perception.”

  — Oregonian

• “With a poet’s precision, Shields dissects grief and makes coping with bad luck feel like domestic heroism.”

  — People

• “Alternately humorous and pithy, this latest by Ms. Shields is a captivating look into the lives and insights of one woman and her family. Thought-provoking is the best way to describe this novel, whose power will stay with the reader well into the future.”

  — RT Book Reviews (4 stars)