Harrison, Kathryn

The seal wife : a novel by Kathryn Harrison ( Book )
25 editions published between 2002 and 2006 in 3 languages and held by 1,441 libraries worldwide
Sent north to Anchorage, Alaska, to establish an observatory in 1915, Bigelow, a young scientist, finds himself unprepared for the loneliness of a frontier railroad town and becomes driven by his all-consuming love for an enigmatic woman known as the Aleut.

The kiss by Kathryn Harrison ( Book )
39 editions published between 1997 and 2011 in 10 languages and held by 1,335 libraries worldwide
"In this extraordinary memoir, one of the best young writers in America today transforms into a work of art the darkest passage imaginable in a young woman's life: an obsessive love affair between father and daughter that began when Kathryn Harrison, twenty years old, was reunited with the father whose absence had haunted her youth." "Exquisitely and hypnotically written, like a bold and terrifying dream, The Kiss is breathtaking in its honesty and in the power and beauty of its creation. A story both of taboo and of family complicity in breaking taboo, The Kiss is also about love - about the most primal of love triangles, the one that ensnares a child between mother and father."--BOOK JACKET.

Envy : a novel by Kathryn Harrison ( Book )
14 editions published between 2005 and 2007 in English and Swedish and held by 1,267 libraries worldwide
A New York psychoanalyst in the midst of a midlife crisis, William Moreland comes face to face with a woman he had loved twenty-five years earlier during a college reunion, an encounter that leads to shocking revelations about their relationship.

While they slept : an inquiry into the murder of a family by Kathryn Harrison ( Book )
3 editions published between 2008 and 2009 in English and held by 1,232 libraries worldwide
From the bestselling author of The Kiss comes a riveting account of true crime-- the murder of a family in a small Midwestern town-- and the gripping exploration of its haunting aftermath. The Gilley family murders ended a lifetime of physical and mental abuse suffered by Billy and Jody at the hands of their parents. And it required each of the two survivors-- one a convicted murderer, the other suddenly an orphan--to create a new identity, a new life.

The binding chair, or, A visit from the Foot Emancipation Society : a novel by Kathryn Harrison ( Book )
6 editions published between 2000 and 2001 in English and held by 1,225 libraries worldwide
The author of The Kiss tells the story of two women whose lives intersect in turn-of-the-century Shanghai; a Chinese girl named Mai, and her Western niece, Alice. 50,000 first printing. In poised and elegant prose, Kathryn Harrison weaves in The Binding Chair; or, A Visit from the Foot Emancipation Society, a stunning story of women, travel, and flight; of love, revenge, and fear; of the search for home and the need to escape it. Set in alluring Shanghai at the turn of the century, The Binding Chair intertwines the destinies of a Chinese woman determined to forget her past and a Western girl focused on the promises of the future. Beautiful, charismatic, destructive May, escapes an arranged marriage in rural nineteenth-century China for life in a Shanghai brothel, where she meets Arthur, an Australian whose philanthropic pursuits lead him into one scrape after another. As a member of the Foot Emancipation Society, Arthur calls on May not for his pleasure but for her rehabilitation, only to find himself immediately and helplessly seduced by the sight of her bound feet. Reforming May is out of the question, so love-struck Arthur marries her instead and brings her home to live with him, his sister and brother-in-law, and their two girls, Alice and Cecily. In Alice, May sees the possibility of redemption: a surrogate for a child she has lost. And it is to May that Alice turns for the love her own mother withholds. But when the twelve-year-old is caught preparing her aunt's opium pipe, she is shipped off to a London boarding school, far from the dangerous influence of the woman who will come to reclaim her and to control the whole family. The Binding Chair unfolds among scenes of astonishing beauty and cruelty, in a lawless place where traditions and cultures clash, and where tragedy threatens a world built on the banks of unsettled waters, from the bustling Whangpoo River to the lake of blood in the Chinese afterworld. By turns shocking, exquisite, and hilarious, The Binding Chair is another spellbinding literary triumph by the writer whose work Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times has called "powerful and hypnotic."

Exposure by Kathryn Harrison ( Book )
12 editions published between 1993 and 2006 in 3 languages and held by 1,172 libraries worldwide
Ann Rogers appears to be a happily married, successful young woman. A talented photographer, she creates happy memories for others, videotaping weddings, splicing together scenes of smiling faces, editing out awkward moments. But she cannot edit her own memories so easily--images of a childhood spent as her father's model and muse, the subject of his celebrated series of controversial photographs. To cope, Ann slips into a secret life of shame and vice. But when the Museum of Modern Art announces a retrospective of her father's shocking portraits, Ann finds herself teetering on the edge of self-destruction, desperately trying to escape the psychological maelstrom that threatens to consume her.

Poison by Kathryn Harrison ( Book )
12 editions published between 1995 and 2008 in English and Spanish and held by 1,143 libraries worldwide
The interwoven lives of two doomed women during the Spanish Inquisition, both accused of being witches. One is Francesca, a merchant's daughter who had an affair with a priest, the other is Queen Maria Luisa who has failed to produce an heir. One will perish at the stake, the other by being poisoned. By the author of Exposure.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux by Kathryn Harrison ( Book )
11 editions published in 2003 in English and Undetermined and held by 1,041 libraries worldwide
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, largely unknown when she died in a Carmelite convent at the age of twenty-four, became-through her posthumously published autobiography-one of the world's most influential religious figures. In Saint Thérèse of Lisieux Kathryn Harrison reveals the hopes and fears of the young girl behind the religious icon. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux shows us the pampered daughter of successful and deeply religious tradespeople who-through a personal appeal to the pope-entered a convent at the early age of fifteen. There, Thérèse embraced sacrifice and self-renunciation in a single-minded pursuit of the "nothingness" she felt would bring her closer to God. With feeling, Harrison shows us the sensitive four-year-old whose mother's death haunted her forever and contributed to the ascetic spirituality that strengthened her to embrace even the deadly throes of tuberculosis. Tellingly placed in the context of late-nineteenth-century French social and religious practices, this is a powerful story of a life lived with enormous passion and a searing, triumphant voyage of the spirit.

Thicker than water by Kathryn Harrison ( Book )
10 editions published between 1991 and 2009 in English and held by 794 libraries worldwide

Seeking rapture : scenes from a woman's life by Kathryn Harrison ( Book )
15 editions published between 2003 and 2004 in English and held by 627 libraries worldwide
The author re-creates episodes from her life as a child, wife, mother, and writer, examining the ways in which childhood experiences recur as memories that can be transformed and sometimes healed in adult life.