Big as Life: Three Tales for Spring

Maureen Howard's most recent novel, the widely praised A Lover's Almanac, was the first of a quartet of fiction that is based on the four seasons. Big as Life, the second book in the series, presents three tales of moral resonance & magical enchantment, united by the sense of regeneration that marks the advent of spring. "Children with Matches" tells of a history professor whose discovery of the hard lessons of the past enables her to take her rightful place beside her lover in the world. "The Magdalene," a story of willful innocence & loss of faith, contrasts the lives of Nell Boyle, a young Irish beauty who is sent to New York in the 1930s to live with her newly rich relatives, & her pious cousin Mae. The central figure in "Big as Life: A Story in Three Panels" is the American artist & naturalist John James Audubon, whose ambition & genius devour those around him. In this final tale Howard also writes of a contemporary couple searching for the right balance between life & art as well as offers an autobiographical contemplation of her own life in the natural world. These three beautifully written & boldly structured tales evoke those of Chekhov & Flaubert & are marked with the distinctive intelligence that makes Howard one of the most esteemed & admired writers in America.Howard, Maureen is the author of 'Big as Life: Three Tales for Spring' with ISBN 9780670899784 and ISBN 067089978X.