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We Shall Not All Sleep
by
Estep Nagy (Goodreads Author)
The entangled pasts of two ruling class New England families come to light over three summer days on an island in Maine in this extraordinary debut novel.
1964. The Hillsingers and the Quicks have shared the small Maine island of Seven for generations. Though technically family—Jim Hillsinger and Billy Quick married Park Avenue sisters Lila and Hannah Blackwell—they do not ...more
1964. The Hillsingers and the Quicks have shared the small Maine island of Seven for generations. Though technically family—Jim Hillsinger and Billy Quick married Park Avenue sisters Lila and Hannah Blackwell—they do not ...more
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(showing 1-30)
The ocean salt-air smells of Maine are worth remembering.....
John was coming to Seven Island from New York after receiving an invitation by Billy Quick, his old friend from Princeton, whom he had not seen for fifteen years when they were trying to repair their damaged friendship.
Billy offered John a trip to Seven with the intention of spiritual reconciliation of sorts.
After his flight, John met at the boat dock, where the Island manager, Cyrus, would help him board 'Heron'......the Island boat ...more
John was coming to Seven Island from New York after receiving an invitation by Billy Quick, his old friend from Princeton, whom he had not seen for fifteen years when they were trying to repair their damaged friendship.
Billy offered John a trip to Seven with the intention of spiritual reconciliation of sorts.
After his flight, John met at the boat dock, where the Island manager, Cyrus, would help him board 'Heron'......the Island boat ...more
I thought this book was quite brilliant, very literary, and highly intriguing. It takes place over a few days, however, there are flashbacks to earlier times such that the reader gets a much longer and larger view into the lives of the characters.
The setting is July 1964 during the era of McCarthyism on Seven Island in northern Maine. Seven is a fictional island home to two very wealthy families whose history is interconnected dating back to the 1700s. In present day, each family owns a beautifu ...more
The setting is July 1964 during the era of McCarthyism on Seven Island in northern Maine. Seven is a fictional island home to two very wealthy families whose history is interconnected dating back to the 1700s. In present day, each family owns a beautifu ...more
Well, this just wasn't a book for me. I liked the setting on the Seven Islands, but there were too many story lines going on in the book. There were some parts that I really liked, but then the old history of these folks got thrown in and to me, it took away from the story. Too much detail.
I would however like to thank Netgalley
and Bloomsbury USA for the opportunity to read this advanced copy.
I would however like to thank Netgalley
and Bloomsbury USA for the opportunity to read this advanced copy.
This book seems to be two disparate stories with hints of a third, and my main complaint is that they just don't really seem to fit together. I was interested in all of them individually but felt I had the same experience as a reader that I do when I simultaneously read multiple books.
One story is that of Russian spies and the witchhunt that went on in the 1950s and 1960s. One of the characters, Hannah, is accused of Communist ties and ends up taking her life. This is known at the beginning but ...more
One story is that of Russian spies and the witchhunt that went on in the 1950s and 1960s. One of the characters, Hannah, is accused of Communist ties and ends up taking her life. This is known at the beginning but ...more
We Shall Not All Sleep is the story of two tangled, often-competitive families who share Seven Island off the coast of Maine. The setting, 1964 New England, evokes something akin the Kennedy family. These are two families struggling with the burden of expectation that comes from privilege. Those pressures manifest themselves in any number of ways, from infidelity to how you raise your children. Catta Hillsinger, the son of Jim and Lila, is forced to inherit the strains that a life of expectation
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I recently read an arc of WE SHALL NOT ALL SLEEP, and I was blown away. It is the kind of book I am always looking for, but never find: lovely sentences, expertly crafted small moments, excellent interior dialogue, a compelling setting, impressively researched historical details, and a tight dramatic tension throughout the piece. Lately it seems that all books that are recommended to me have gut-wrenching details that compel the recommendation. In this case, my recommendation is based solely on
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In 1965 two families, the Quicks and the Hillsingers, gather on an idyllic Maine island. They are preparing for Migration Day when the sheep are gathered and transported to the rich clover fields of a neighboring island, a time of feasting and celebration.
Seven Island and its archipelago of islands have belonged to the families for seven generations; their ancestors had made their fortunes as privateers. The Blackwell sisters Lila and Hannah married into the families: Lila marrying Jim Hilsinger ...more
Seven Island and its archipelago of islands have belonged to the families for seven generations; their ancestors had made their fortunes as privateers. The Blackwell sisters Lila and Hannah married into the families: Lila marrying Jim Hilsinger ...more
This novel looked promising, but looks can be deceiving. It's certainly ambitious, but the best way I can describe it is that it concentrated so much on being literary, it forgot to be good. The writing in itself is strong, but the narrative doesn't work. The layers aren't crafted precisely, so it meanders, obfuscates itself, confuses. Some of the 1960s flashbacks are quite good, but the story is all over the place, so much so that it's impossible to connect with it on any meaningful level. Ther
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I tried, but I just could not connect to these people or this story. Too many plot lines added I think, to the dissatisfaction of this. I liked moments in the story, but there were not enough of them to make me give this a better review. I do not think I'll be reading any more by this author.
**Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley in exchange of an honest review.**
**Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley in exchange of an honest review.**
via my blog https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com...
"While sharing nothing else, lila thought, this man and her husband both spoke from a very hot core of certainty."
In We Shall Not All Sleep, there are two houses on the Seven Island- one for the Hillsingers one for the Quicks' and the two are rooted in each other. Despite sharing the island and marrying wealthy sisters, Billy Quick and Jim Hillsinger keep the families apart. It is the anniversary of Hannah's death, surviving sister Lila is fin ...more
"While sharing nothing else, lila thought, this man and her husband both spoke from a very hot core of certainty."
In We Shall Not All Sleep, there are two houses on the Seven Island- one for the Hillsingers one for the Quicks' and the two are rooted in each other. Despite sharing the island and marrying wealthy sisters, Billy Quick and Jim Hillsinger keep the families apart. It is the anniversary of Hannah's death, surviving sister Lila is fin ...more
An astonishing first novel from Nagy. This has all the hallmarks of a classic: controlled, beautiful language; bubbling pacing; and a narrative that pulls the reader from page to page. The climactic scenes were so gripping that I lost the normal reader's emotional distance from the work--I felt like a consumed movie-goer inadvertently shouting warnings to the characters on the screen. A lovely story perfectly told. Bravo.
DECLINED TO REVIEW. Although a slow pace is forgivable in a deliberately dense, delicately stylish character study, especially one with as unique and interesting a premise as Estep Nagy's We Shall Not All Sleep (in which two families have shared a small island in Maine since Revolutionary times, developing a bizarrely dysfunctional, Kennedy-Compound-like insular culture, with our particular story looking at the schism in the mid-1960s between the older generation of gruff military veterans and t
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A beautifully written novel.A tale of two entangled families a book that drew me in from the first pages.This is the authors lyrically written first novel an author to follow,
Please Note: I received an advanced reader's copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This did not influence the opinions of my review in any way.
Set in 1964, We All Shall Not Sleep, by Estep Nagy, brings forth both nostalgia and a sober reminder that our childhoods weren't as idyllic as we might remember. The setting for this novel is a private island in Maine where two families spend their summers. For the adults, it is an escape from the reality, but also a fertile p ...more
Set in 1964, We All Shall Not Sleep, by Estep Nagy, brings forth both nostalgia and a sober reminder that our childhoods weren't as idyllic as we might remember. The setting for this novel is a private island in Maine where two families spend their summers. For the adults, it is an escape from the reality, but also a fertile p ...more
Jim Hillsinger and Billy Quick share Seven Islamd, as their families have for generations and are technically in-laws through their wives. During one summer, the loss of Hannah Quick will draw Lila Hillsinger - her sister - towards Billy; Jim will leave their youngest son Catta on the wild and unsettled Baffin Island for twenty-four hours; and the sadistic James Hillsinger will lead the other children in terrible games, all to the backdrop of the annual Migration which involves transporting all
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I found myself engaging in quite a bit of self-introspection as I read this book and after I finished it - which, for me, is the mark of a good novel. At its core, this book is about identifying and living up to the expectations set for us by society, by our families, and by ourselves - with the attendant relief of meeting those expectations, as well as the costs of falling short of those expectations.
Set on a remote island in Maine during the post-McCarthyism height of the Cold War, WE SHALL N ...more
Set on a remote island in Maine during the post-McCarthyism height of the Cold War, WE SHALL N ...more
Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Estep Nagy has a beautiful way with words. There were several passages I highlighted and reread because of their eloquence and vividness. My problem was the structure and story. Shifting between the 1940's and 1960's the story revolves around two society sisters, their husbands and offspring. Sisters, Hannah and Lia share a small island in Maine, where each own a home where the families vacati ...more
Estep Nagy has a beautiful way with words. There were several passages I highlighted and reread because of their eloquence and vividness. My problem was the structure and story. Shifting between the 1940's and 1960's the story revolves around two society sisters, their husbands and offspring. Sisters, Hannah and Lia share a small island in Maine, where each own a home where the families vacati ...more
This ambitious and complex debut novel is a powerful and compelling tale of two wealthy families who have lived on the same small Maine island for generations but who rarely mix, and although their lives are intermeshed in many ways, they maintain an uneasy, even hostile distance. The story is set over three tense summer days, but with many changes of voice and perspective and with many flashbacks. The reader certainly has to concentrate to keep track of what is going on and the large cast of ch
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I do have a published review coming and will provide a link but in the meantime, this is the kind of book you read and think - who in publishing owed you a favor because this is really not very good. Maybe an editor could have teased out a novel from this mess and in fact, there is one storyline - the young son who is left on the island alone in a sadistic attempt to 'make a man of him' that is quite moving. But all the cold war nonsense and complex plot about nothing and characters like puppets
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I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book, while written with excellent mastery of language, was so confusing it was impossible to follow the story. The constant interruptions of the narrative to flash back to the McCarthy witch-hunt era, seemed to have no connection to the other story of a young boy deliberately stranded overnight by this father on an island.
It was a constant struggle to remember ...more
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book, while written with excellent mastery of language, was so confusing it was impossible to follow the story. The constant interruptions of the narrative to flash back to the McCarthy witch-hunt era, seemed to have no connection to the other story of a young boy deliberately stranded overnight by this father on an island.
It was a constant struggle to remember ...more
I found this book a struggle to get into, there were just too many plots and characters that I just couldn't keep up. The style of writing was very good, but it was too slow and confusing for me to find it enjoyable.
A beautifully written book but just not for me.
An average 3 star read.
A beautifully written book but just not for me.
An average 3 star read.
Too much material presented in too close formation. Not a bad book, just not for me.
An island off the coast of Maine has been owned for centuries by two blue-blooded American families with a fraught relationship to one another. Over the course of a few days in 1964, the Hillsingers and Quicks battle in an explosion of prideful fathers, the violence of childhood, and the tenuous bonds that hold families together. Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, Estep Nagy's debut is full of crisply drawn characters while exploring the dangers of human and mother nature.
I seem to be facing a rut when it comes to books: nothing I've read has turned out the way I expected. I was really looking forward to this story but it ended up leaving me dissatisfied. While the author put a lot of thought into the various descriptions, and the writing style was quite nice, the story itself failed on a lot of levels. One of the major flaws with this book is that there are too many plot lines. Each one begins at random points and they all interweave to create a confusing mess.
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Thought this book was just ok...would probably actually give it about 2 1/2 stars. I found there to be too many characters and I kept getting confused with who was connected to who.
The part about the FBI/CIA interviews during the Red Scare and Cold War were interesting.
I never really connected with the plot or understood why any of the characters did what they did. It was a short book, so I stuck it out.
Thanks to #netgalley for the ARC.
The part about the FBI/CIA interviews during the Red Scare and Cold War were interesting.
I never really connected with the plot or understood why any of the characters did what they did. It was a short book, so I stuck it out.
Thanks to #netgalley for the ARC.
I enjoyed this book, mostly. Or almost. I was interested in the characters, the complex web of familial involvements and betrayals. But something in the writing style itself felt distanced, clinical, as if looking at the characters and their stories from a long way off.
The ending felt a bit rushed and unresolved as well; I turned the last page and was surprised.
The ending felt a bit rushed and unresolved as well; I turned the last page and was surprised.
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We Shall Not All Sleep is Estep Nagy's debut novel. His fiction and other work have appeared in Southwest Review, The Believer, Paper, Box Office, and elsewhere. He is also the writer and director of The Broken Giant, a 1998 independent feature film starring Will Arnett, John Glover, and Chris Noth that is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, and his plays have been produced ac
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“Seven Island has two houses, one for Hillsingers and one for Quicks”
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