About the Book
"Devotion's biggest triumph is its voice: funny and unpretentious, concrete and earthy--appealing to skeptics and believers alike. This is a gripping, beautiful story." --Jennifer Egan, author of The Keep
"I was immensely moved by this elegant book." --Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love
Dani Shapiro, the acclaimed author of the novel Black and White and the bestselling memoir Slow Motion, is back with Devotion: a searching and timeless new memoir that examines the fundamental questions that wake women in the middle of the night, and grapples with the ways faith, prayer, and devotion affect everyday life. Devotion is sure to appeal to all those dealing with the trials and tribulations of what Carl Jung called "the afternoon of life."
About the Author :
Dani Shapiro is the author of the novels Black & White and Family History and the bestselling memoir Slow Motion. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, Elle, Vogue, O, and other publications.
Review :
"Shapiro is a thoughtful observer, and her writing is lovely." - Juliet Wittman, Washington Post
"Brave, compelling, unexpectedly witty. . . . Stunningly intimate journey. . . . Thanks to Shapiro's excruciatingly honest self-examination and crystal clear, lyrical writing, the journey--as secular swami Steve Jobs once famously said--is indeed the reward." - People (4 out of 4 stars)
"At a certain age (heading-into-middle) and level of income (upper middle), Americans are prone to ask themselves, in the tradition of Peggy Lee, "Is That All There Is?" This tendency has spawned a subgenre of Seeker books-like Kathleen Norris's "Cloister Walk." Anne Lamott's "Traveling Mercies" and, of course, Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love." With Devotion, Shapiro joins their ranks. . . . In short, lyrical bursts of prose, Shapiro explores various flavors of belief. . . . Shapiro is a gifted chronicler of frayed nerves." - Judith Newman, New York Times Book Review
"This is a beautiful, wry and moving story about one intelligent woman's journey into her own life, to the corners where intelligence doesn't always help." - Amy Bloom, author of Away
"The one book that anyone over, say, 35 needs to read right now." - Jesse Kornbluth, Huffington Post
"[A] lovely mosaic of a memoir. . . . Courageous, authentic, and funny. . . . Devotion is the best kind of memoir--although it's about someone else's life, it makes you shine a flashlight on your own." - Amy Scribner, Bookpage
"In Devotion . . . Shapiro movingly unravels her personal history . . . and her subsequent quest to resolve a spiritual unease and to satisfy her son's questions about God. . . . Shapiro's spiritual inquiry digs at doubts many of us face about our place in the universe, and her struggles with the God question serve as a hopeful reminder that a belief system can begin with an individual manifesto: less a set of rules than a matrix of bits and pieces that form the 'patchwork of our lives.'" - Kari Wethington, Elle
"I was immensely moved by this elegant book, which reminded me all over again that all of us-at some point or another-must buck up our courage and face down the big spiritual questions of life, death, love, loss and surrender. Dani Shapiro probes all those questions gracefully and honestly, avoiding overly simple conclusions, while steadfastly exploring her own complicated relationship to faith and doubt." - Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love
"I was on the verge of tears more than once in the course of Dani Shapiro's impeccably structured spiritual odyssey. But Devotion's biggest triumph is its voice: funny and unpretentious, concrete and earthy-appealing to skeptics and believers alike. This is a gripping, beautiful story." - Jennifer Egan, author of The Keep
"I was immensely moved by this elegant book, which reminded me all over again that all of us-at some point or another-must buck up our courage and face down the big spiritual questions of life, death, love, loss and surrender." - Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love
"Dani Shapiro's novels and nonfiction are always rich in honesty and intelligence, about the psyche and lost hearts and families, about messes and shame and what calls us to transcend." - Anne Lamott, author of Grace (Eventually)
"Dani Shapiro's novels and nonfiction are always rich in honesty and intelligence, about the psyche and lost hearts and families, about messes and shame and what calls us to transcend; and how painfully we find out who we are, and how inadequate and stunning the journey is, how it goes both so slowly and in the blink of an eye--how dark and then what (against all odds) so brilliantly lights the way." - Anne Lamott, author of Grace (Eventually)
