Quartet for the End of Time: A Novel by Johanna Skibsrud | eBook

Giller Prize–winning author Johanna Skibsrud spins a masterful tale about memory and war.

Inspired by and structured around the chamber piece of the same title by the French composer Olivier Messiaen, Quartet for the End of Time is a mesmerizing story of four lives irrevocably linked in a single act of betrayal. The novel takes us on an unforgettable journey beginning during the 1930s Bonus Army riots, when World War I veteran Arthur Sinclair is falsely accused of conspiracy and then disappears. His absence will haunt his son, Douglas, as well as Alden and Sutton Kelly, the children of a powerful U.S. congressman, as they experience—each in different ways—the dynamic political social changes that took place leading up to and during World War II.

From the New Deal projects through which Douglas, newly fatherless, makes his living to Sutton’s work as a journalist, to Alden’s life as a code breaker and a spy, each character is haunted by the past and is searching for love, hope, and redemption in a world torn apart by chaos and war. Through the lives of these characters, as well as those of their lovers, friends, and enemies, the novel transports us from the Siberian Expedition of World War I to the underground world of a Soviet spy in the 1920s and 1930s, to the occultist circle of P. D. Ouspensky and London during the Blitz, to the German prison camp where Messiaen originally composed and performed his famous Quartet for the End of Time.

At every turn, this rich and ambitious novel tells some of the less well-known stories of twentieth-century history with epic scope and astonishing power, revealing at every turn the ways in which history and memory tend to follow us, and in which absence has a palpable presence.

The New York Times Book Review - Andrea Thompson

For her second novel, the Canadian writer Johanna Skibsrud borrows not only [the French composer Olivier] Messiaen's title but also his intent to devise a new rhythmic language. In digressive, sometimes mesmerizing, sometimes obfuscatory prose, she examines the complexity of human relationships and the myriad ways in which identity can be malleable.

Publishers Weekly

08/11/2014
This intricate, ambitious novel by the author of The Sentimentalists (winner of the Giller Prize) takes its theme—the illusions of time—from Olivier Messiaen’s musical composition of the same name. In 1932, an ad-hoc army of veterans occupies Washington, D.C., demanding the immediate payment of their demobilization bonuses. Rebellious Alden Kelly is drawn to the makeshift camps, where he falls prey to Communist operatives. When Alden is arrested carrying an explosive, his politically powerful father pressures the boy’s young sister, Sutton, to falsely identify veteran Arthur Sinclair as the guilty party. Alden is released, but Arthur—whose fate is never clear—continues to haunt Alden, Sutton, and Arthur’s son, Douglas, who crisscrosses the Depression-ravaged country in search of his father. Alden never frees himself from the incident’s burden; as WWII ends, past and present, truth and illusion, merge in his mind. Like McEwan’s Atonement, the novel examines an act of personal betrayal against a sweeping backdrop of historical conflict. The philosophical musings and narrative detours Skibsrud uses to manipulate time sometimes make the pacing sluggish. But at its best, the novel is a haunting meditation on responsibility with vivid glimpses of history, and a distinctive and nuanced voice. (Oct.)

Molly Antopol

Quartet for the End of Time is a searingly beautiful book, at once a sweeping historical epic and an intimate mediation on faith and memory. Johanna Skibsrud’s newest novel is so intelligent, so compassionate, so moving—and above all so gorgeously written—that it’s impossible to put down. She is an astonishingly good writer.”

Joan Silber

This is a wonderfully original novel. Scenes of extraordinary high drama take place in a realm drawn with great historical accuracy—in prose that marks this fiction with its own unexpected ethereal tint. Skibsrud has talent to burn.

Andrea Barrett

Mysterious, richly detailed, and wholly original, this symphonic fiction makes emotion palpable, weaving the consequences of acts and emotions into its very structure.

Tim O’Brien

Quartet for the End of Time is a brilliant work of art, and it is brilliant in so many ways—its dense, rich, and immaculate prose; its vivid evocation of a watershed period in American history; its high-stakes political and personal drama; and, above all, its intimate and completely compelling portraits of human beings struggling to do the right thing under ambiguous moral circumstances. This wholly realized book has everything I crave in a work of fiction.”

Joanna Scutts - Washington Post

An ambitious, tough-minded story…By avoiding narrative cliches, Skibsrud is able to reinvigorate the history her novel rests on.

Tim OBrien

Library Journal

09/15/2014
Creating an epic such as this one required a commitment from Skibsrud (The Sentimentalists), and this novel will require a commitment from the reader. The story, about several people affected by the sudden disappearance of World War I veteran Arthur Sinclair during the 1930s Bonus Army war, reads like memories after waking from a dream. These moments are shared by a brother and sister, Alden and Sutton Kelly, who might be to blame for Arthur's fate, and Arthur's son Douglas, who spends many years looking for his father. The novel comes to a close as World War II ends, in a German prisoner of war camp where Olivier Messiaen composed his famous Quartet for the End of Time. The reader must embrace the idea that time is not linear and that events taking place in the present are recollections or events a character might later need to review or defend. Scenes and new characters are introduced in great detail but only for a few pages or even paragraphs. However fleeting, they are important to the featured character at that moment and hence important to the overall story, but they weigh down the narrative. VERDICT This is an ambitious, creative, and sweeping novel, starting in 1930s Washington, DC, and moving throughout the United States and eventually to war-ravaged Europe, but it is no easy read. [See Prepub Alert, 4/27/14.]—Shaunna E. Hunter, Hampden-Sydney Coll. Lib., VA

Kirkus Reviews

2014-10-09
Skibsrud's elegant, intricately woven second novel (The Sentimentalists, 2011) is inspired by Messiaen's experimental composition Quartet for the End of Time, a musical piece that sought to escape the restrictions of conventional measurements of time.Attempting to mimic Messiaen's structure, Skibsrud jumps into different perspectives and time periods to trace the repercussions of a single event. The book begins in 1932 with a group of down-on-their-luck World War I veterans camped out in Washington, D.C., to demand the immediate cash fulfillment of their bonus certificates, which weren't due to mature until 1945. A young, idealistic judge's son, Alden Kelly, finds himself sympathetic to the cause of the Bonus Army though his father vehemently disagrees with him. He falls under the sway of a Communist leader who asks him to carry an explosive device for a shadowy purpose, but before the bomb can reach its intended destination, Alden gets caught in the swell of a riot and has his bag confiscated by the police. In the ensuing investigation, the judge arranges for Alden's sister, Sutton, to point the finger at Kansas veteran Arthur Sinclair, who disappears after being taken into custody. The repercussions of this action ripple through the rest of the book as Skibsrud traces the lives of Sutton, Alden, and Arthur's son, Douglas, through the Great Depression, World War II and beyond, long after the bonus tickets are paid out thanks to Congressional approval. Though Skibsrud's pacing sometimes bogs down, her unique voice and eye for historical detail lend the book a satisfying richness.

Quartet for the End of Time: A Novel

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