Can you ever really know someone? I mean really really know even someone you have known most of your life?. Maybe. In this story Kathryn, the pilots wife,slowly learns more and more about her husband,Jack, none of which she really wants know, but she must go on digging, she has to untangle the mystery of who Jack really was. This book was not published as a mystery or crime novel,but there was a lot of mystery and a terrible crime, but there was much about family and relationships also. The story was slow going at first, but about a third of the way in it seemed to pick up speed and in the end your patience will be rewarded. A very good read.

Anita Shreve’s “The Pilot’s Wife” is a political and emotional powerhouse, her best novel to date. The story is told through Kathryn Lyons, the wife of a pilot whose plane blows up off the coast of Ireland, killing all on board. Kathryn is thrust into a nightmare and media fury as airline investigators come to believe that the plane did not go down accidentally; rather, they suggest her husband carried a bomb in his flight bag for the IRA. Kathryn never knew her husband Jack to be political—he enjoyed hockey, computers and being with Kathryn and their daughter Mattie— and embarks on a journey to learn the truth. She discovers that the people we love the most may be the ones we know the least.

This story starts out with a knock on the door in the early morning hours - it is the "call" no one wants to receive: the plane piloted by Kathryn's husband, Jack, has gone done in a fiery crash. There are no survivors. As the media descends on Kathryn and her daughter and speculation as to why the plane crashed starts to swirl, Kathryn starts to see signs that lead her to realize there was more to her husband than she ever would have guessed.

The story is told both from present day and in flashbacks of how Kathryn and Jack first met and fell in love up to just before Jack left for what ended up being his final trip, with Kathryn feeling certain instances were just the normal course of life for two people who had settled into a marriage that was going on twenty years as she never had any reason to think otherwise.

As someone who lost their love at a young age, I'm always impressed when a non-widowed author nails what it is like for the newly bereaved and I feel that Shreve really got that part right. Even the passage of time, with the first half (roughly) of the book only spanning 11 days but feeling much longer was spot on. So I really appreciated the story from this aspect.

The secret life of Jack was a nice twist but seemed to unfold a little too easily - as if he wasn't putting that much effort into hiding it. But it did still bring to mind that age old question of how well does one ever really know another person?

I did feel the ending was a little too neat though. Though not explicitly stated, it was heavily implied that the airline union rep assigned to Jack's case (basically monitor what she says to the press to avoid placing heat for the accident on the airline) seems to have fallen in love with Kathryn and that was disappointing. I also thought that (daughter) Mattie was a 15 year old freshman, but in one of the flashbacks, she's being given an award as a sophomore and something about the way that passage was written seemed like there was a continuity error. I also had a really poorly edited e-book copy in which the dialogue wasn't separated into paragraphs and that made it confusing at times as to which character was speaking and that definitely detracted from the book. There were other editing errors as well, (like hyphenated words that may have been on separate lines in the paperback version but that were on the same line in the e-format) and that always tends to ruin a book for me. That said, this is the 4th book of hers I have read and I will continue to work my way through her novels.

To leave, after all, was not the same as being left.

She considered the question. Odd, she thought, how intensely you knew a person, or thought, how you did, when you were in love - soaked, drenched in love - only to discover later that perhaps you didn't know that person quite as well as you had imagined. Or weren't quite as well known as you had hoped to be. In the beginning, a lover drank every word and gesture and then tried to hold on to that intensity for as long as possible. But inevitably, if two people were together long enough, that intensity had to wane. It was the way people worked, Kathryn thought, with a need to evolve from being sick with love to making a life with someone who was also changing, altering himself, so that the couple could one day raise a child.

Odd, she thought, how a fact, seen one way, was one thing. And then, seen from a different angle, was something else entirely. Or perhaps not so odd.

"I knew about you" Muire Boland said. "You never had to know about me."

To be relieved of love, she thought, was to give up a terrible burden.

The Pilot's Wife was so different from everything I have read this year. Recently I checked all the books which have been chosen as Oprah's Book Club selections and Anita Shreve's novel sparked my interest. I am still doubtful whether it was a 4 stars novel or not but it was certainly better than 3 stars. For the moment I find it really difficult to find the right words to describe this book because it gave you a whole different perspective of a pilot's family life. At first glance the subject seems to be very dramatic, but given the fact that the writing is so descriptive, beautiful, smooth and you feel from the beginning that something is not right about the husband and you expect a series of mind-blowing revelations regarding his life before the plane crash, you don't necessarily have this kind of impression while reading it. The truth is that it is impossible to know a person wholly. Virtually everyone has secrets, some bigger secrets that affect severely other people, others secrets that are rather inoffensive.

"Ador lucrurile pe care le faci pentru mintea mea. [...] Si lucrurile pe care le faci pentru corpul meu."
Anita Shreve ne propune o poveste de dragoste destul de dezumflata, dar care pe mine m-a amuzat si astfel i-am acordat 3 stele, insa in conditiile in care exista atatea si atatea romane de genul, nu vi l-as recomanda chiar pe acesta.
Khatryn Lyons este o sotie de pilot obisnuita cu programul sotului ei, cu plecarile lui, cu venirile lui si cu faptul ca intr-o zi ar putea sa primeasca acel telefon groaznic care sa anunte prabusirea avionului sau. Cand acest lucru se intampla ea incearca sa se tina tare insa primeste fel si fel de zvonuri de la compania aeriana si cercetatorii de la fata locului. Acestia afirma ca sunt suspiciuni ca acesta a prabusit avionul cu buna stiinta, sinucigandu-se.
Ea incepe sa "sape" in viata sotului ei atunci cand gaseste o chitanta de la un curier pentru o rochie, apoi niste extrase suspecte de la banca si apoi decide sa afle cine a fost sotul ei cu adevarat. Ce va descoperi o va soca teribil, insa nu va fi singura, anchetatorul chipes si empatic, Robert, va fi langa ea.
Asadar, avem povestioara clasica, domnita la ananghie, cavalerul saritor, nitel condimentata cu un crampei de actiune cu niste teroristi si un happy end pe masura.
Ca sa fiu sincera mi-a "smuls" 3 stele pentru ca am citit la pagina 95 ceva dragut despre pinguini si anume: se pare ca masculii isi aleg o femela din mii de exemplare si dupa ce alegerea e facuta (nu stiu cum o deosebesc de celelalte) masculul se duce si cauta cele mai frumoase pietre si le pune la picioarele femelei. Iar ea, daca il place, accepta pietrele. Nu e cel mai dragut lucru din lume? Si pinguinul stie ca trebuie sa daruiasca pietre, nu chiar diamante, ce poate si el. :D Adorabil.
Un lucru care m-a amuzat este faptul ca la pagina 210 se spune despre Kathryn ca gaseste o "presa pentru pantaloni" la hotel, pusa la dispozitia oaspetilor si nu stiu ce o fi si cum arata acel obiect. Oare e banalul fier de calcat? Sau e ceva de dimensiuni industriale... Ca sa fiu sincera in ziua de azi nu mai are nimeni dunga la pantaloni, acum avem nevoie mai degraba de un "shredder de blugi"!
Trebuie sa mai mentionez ca numerotarea paginilor se face foarte ciudat, in lateral si nu am mai intalnit asta la nicio carte. De asemenea nu stiu cum se lipesc mai nou cartile, dar aproape la fiecare exemplar paginile se desfac si iti cad in poala ca niste confetti. Este din ce in ce mai greu sa gasesti carti bine legate. Poate ca n-ar fi rau sa foloseasca acea presa de pantaloni...
In incheiere atasez cateva citate despre casnicie care mi s-au parut demne de retinut:
"Apoi se gandi cat de stranie era nenorocirea aceea - acel fel de nenorocire care iti sugea sangele din trup si aerul din plamani si te lovea continuu in fata - nenorocire care uneori poate fi o forma de frumusete."
"Desi observase de atatea ori acest fenomen, lui Khatryn tot i se parea greu de inteles: felul in care nimic nu ramanea asa cum fusese, nici casele care cadeau in paragina, nici chipurile femeilor care candva fusesera frumoase, nici copilaria, nici casnicia, nici dragostea.
"Parea diabolic de deranjant sa inregistrezi ultimele secunde din viata unui om. Unde se mai facea acest lucru decat in celula condamnatilor la moarte."
"De fapt se gandea ca orice casnicie era ca receptia undelor de radio: aparea si disparea. Cateodata, lucrurile - Jack, casnicia - ii erau clare. Alteori, ele se interferau, era un sunet static intre ele."

She had a normal marriage. A good marriage. At least that is what she believed. “If you never suspected someone, she realized, you never thought to suspect.” There is beauty and eloquence in the portrayal of wife’s grief and betrayal in the aftermath of her husband’s death. Kathryn Lyons is woken up early one morning to learn that her husband, Jack, had just died in an airplane crash off the coast of Ireland. Jack was the pilot for the 104 crew and passengers on board. The union representative, Robert, is shielding her from the media and fallout, while her grandmother, Julia, is taking care of their traumatized 15-year-old daughter, Mattie. The author skillfully and gently unfolds the life of a family torn asunder by tragedy.

Here are some gems:

“Parents got hurt and swallowed it and watched their children leave them, incrementally at first, and then with head-spinning rapidity.”

“She studied him and added a small detail to a portrait that had been forming since the day he’d entered her house. It was what one did with people, Kathryn thought, form portraits, fill in missing brush strokes, wait for form and color to materialize.”

This is book I had in my personal library for a while, which I never got around to reading it until now and so glad I did. The library was closed, and I thought I would tackle some of my own books. I wondered why I had not seen any of her books published recently and did not realize that she died in 2018 at 71 years old of cancer. RIP.

This was a heartfelt novel that asked the fundamental question…How well can we ever really know another person? particularly those we really love. Anita Shreve wrote an emotional story that chronicled more than a mysterious investigation, it explored love, betrayal, grief, and the consequences of deception. The Pilot’s Wife was more of a fractured mystery novel with an obvious culmination that was mediocre, at best. (Audio)

This was an airport "argh, I need something to read on a 4 hour flight" impulse buy. Since everything at the airport shop seemed to be on Oprah's list, there was no avoiding it. I don't know what is more annoying about this book, the supposed idylic settinig of New England, or the preposterous misunderstanding of the IRA. The whole thing is implausible, unless the protaginist is a major idiot... Oh, maybe that is not that big of an assumption.

I don't think I've ever given a #1 to a book before. It's too bad, because the plot was fairly solid, a pilot's wife finds out after his death that he had another family in England and was also a smuggler for the Irish Republic. However, I had to keep skimming the verbose detail about the day and the flowers and the sun and the look in someone's eye and on and on. The story should have been cut by at least half, the rest was filler. But I did want to find out what happened so I actually read this snooze fest, skimming many parts.In the end I didn't much care for the mother, her daughter, or any character in the book except maybe Robert, the man assigned to tell the wife about her husband's death. He seemed more real than anyone else.

BLURB
A pilot's wife is taught to be prepared for the late-night knock at the door. But when Kathryn Lyons receives word that a plane flown by her husband, Jack, has exploded near the coast of Ireland, she confronts the unfathomable-one startling revelation at a time. Soon drawn into a maelstrom of publicity fueled by rumors that Jack led a secret life, Kathryn sets out to learn who her husband really was, whatever that knowledge might cost. Her search propels this taut, impassioned novel as it movingly explores the question, How well can we ever really know another person?

I watched the movie many years ago and still remember it. The movie was more action-driven in a way, and less emotionally orientated than the book, although the ambiance of the book was perfectly captured. Kathryn Lyons mourned the idyllic life she has lost after learning about her husband's deceit. In the end she did not mourn her husband Jack, but the good life he had cheated them out of. They had a daughter together, who had to learn the truth about her father in the end and make peace with his good memories, as well as the legacy he left behind. Being a teenager, Maddy had to navigate the start of an adult life with a mother gone to Ireland, searching for Jack's alleged connection to the IRA and the smuggling of explosives between Boston and Ireland. She discovered much more than that.

I was in a mood for a placid, gentle read after a few high-voltage murder mysteries and literature. This was the perfect choice. Although the author's books lean heavily on the emotional turbulence it ignites in the reader, the stories are always a moral showground with many questions left for the readers to find answers to. The longer one lingers on the issues, the more intricate the answers become. Jack was a good man. Loving. Hardworking. He could have been anyone of us. But then he was not. Nothing in life is cut and paste or black or white. Between Kathryn's and Jack's version of the events, the facts had to be found, but it was not as easy as it sounded and Jack was dead ...

The book is beautiful. It is enhanced by the movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLx1F...

I've been wanting to read this book for so long. I'm so happy it finally happened. It was an Anita Shreve experience and I loved it.

I hated this book, and the main character. How could a female author write a book about such a weak, idiotic woman?

I have no idea why, but I was really convinced the story was set in World War II. After reading A Bridge too Far, I was in the mood for a fictional read in this setting, but it turned out this book was nothing of the sort. The pilot is a commercial pilot and *** spoiler ahead *** the whole book is about his wife, as she unfolds the secret life of her husband after he dies in a plane crash. The writing is nothing special, the story either, at times it is even not very convincing. And it was certainly not what I had in mind when I picked it up, but it was still an enjoyable read. I would have kept out the fairy tale ending, though, as I think the story would have turned out better if it had finished two chapters earlier.