The Virtues of Oxygen, Susan Schoenberger
The Virtues of Oxygen, Susan Schoenberger
1 Rating(s)
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The Virtues of Oxygen

Author: Susan Schoenberger

Narrator: Susan Schoenberger

Unabridged: 6 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook (DRM Protected)

Published: 07/22/2014

Categories: Fiction, Family Life, Women

Synopsis

From the award-winning author of A Watershed Year comes a heartrending story of unlikely bonds made under dire straits. Holly is a young widow with two kids living in a ramshackle house in the same small town where she grew up wealthy. Now barely able to make ends meet editing the town’s struggling newspaper, she manages to stay afloat with help from her family. Then her mother suffers a stroke, and Holly’s world begins to completely fall apart.Vivian has lived an extraordinary life, despite the fact that she has been confined to an iron lung since contracting polio as a child. Her condition means she requires constant monitoring, and the close-knit community joins together to give her care and help keep her alive. As their town buckles under the weight of the Great Recession, Holly and Vivian, two very different women both touched by pain, forge an unlikely alliance that may just offer each an unexpected salvation.

About Susan Schoenberger

Susan Schoenberger is the author of the award-winning debut novel A Watershed Year. Before turning her attention to writing fiction, she worked as a journalist and copyeditor for many years, most recently at The Hartford Courant and The Baltimore Sun. She currently serves as the director of communications at Hartford Seminary and teaches writing classes at the Mark Twain House in Hartford. She lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, with her husband and three children.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Doreen

This is the story of two women. One of them, Holly, is a 42-year-old widow with two teenage sons. She works at the local newspaper in Bertram Corners, a two-hour drive from New York City. She struggles with finances, trying to keep up mortgage payments on her home and survives only with the assistan......more

Goodreads review by Dana

I could not put this book down. The friendship between Vivian and Holly was so touching and extraordinary. Funny how close they both were really never knew each others struggles until almost the very end.Holly was a widow raising two boys and trying to keep things afloat with house payments and stru......more

Goodreads review by Charlene

There are lots of good reviews of this book so I won't say much. Just an "okay" read for me. The story of two women whose lives intertwine but I was only interested in one story - Vivian's, a polio survivor living in an iron lung. Holly's story, a widow with two children trying to make ends meet, di......more

Goodreads review by Karen

I would have most certainly given this book 5 stars 2/3 of the way through. I was loving every moment. But then it kind of fell apart at the end. Holly's financial was resolved too quickly and easily, her challenges just kind of disappeared, but the most disappointing part was how Vivian chose to ha......more

Quotes

“Beautifully written and achingly real, The Virtues of Oxygen quickly drew me in to the lives of Holly, a single mother, and Vivian, a polio survivor in an iron lung. Schoenberger skillfully intersects these women’s lives and creates an authentic, emotional, and at times, heartbreaking portrait of small-town life during the recession. A richly drawn meditation on loss, love, friendship, and most of all, what it means to breathe—and to fully live.” —Jillian Cantor, author of Margot“Susan Schoenberger has crafted a powerful novel about a woman whose remarkable strength moves us to rethink our ideas of what it means to live a meaningful life. The Virtues of Oxygen is an incredible mosaic of deep friendship, courageous spirit, and yearning to break free of boundaries that are beyond our control. Beautifully written.” —Tina Ann Forkner, author of Rose House

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