Anita Shreve always manages to throw a curve ball into events and change her characters lives irrevocably. A newly married couple find out how little they know about each other while on a Kenyan expedition. Get ready for powerful, emotional stuff.
Newlyweds Margaret and Patrick set off on a great adventure -- a year living in Kenya in a dizzying and sometimes dangerous city. Shuttling between expat suburbs and squalid shantytowns, Margaret realizes there is a great deal she doesn't know about the complex culture of her new home, and about her husband.
The newlyweds eagerly take part in a climbing expedition to the summit of Mount Kenya. But during their arduous ascent a horrific accident occurs. In its aftermath, Margaret struggles to understand what happened on the mountain and how it has transformed her and her marriage, perhaps for ever.
When small actions have unintended, catastrophic consequences, where does responsibility lie, and can blame ever truly be laid to rest? With stunning language and striking emotional intensity, A Change in Altitude illuminates the inner landscape of a couple, the irrevocable impact of tragedy and the elusive nature of forgiveness.
Anita Shreve is the author of fifteen best-selling novels which have spent more than 100 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller Lists. The Weight of Water was short listed for the Orange Prize and The Pilot’s Wife was selected by Oprah Winfrey’s ‘Book club’ series. Shreve started her writing career as a journalist and her award-winning short stories and non-fiction have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Cosmopolitan and Esquire. Shreve is married to a man she met when she was 13. She has two children and three stepchildren and lives in Massachusetts.
Anita Shreve was our Author of the Month in February 2012.