Angels Go Naked
Select Format
Select Condition 
Book Overview
Margaret Rose is a talented but nervous violinist given to bouts of stage fright and unrequited love; Webster Hale is a biologist who, on principle, refuses to kill animals in order to study them. In Angels Go Naked , a novel told in stories, Cornelia Nixon, a writer whose gift is apparent on every page, follows this vexed love story and the collision course they call their life together. Their connection is never in doubt, though Webster is appalled by the urban underbelly of Chicago, which Margy calls home. He refuses to have children because the earth is overrun with humans, and Margy feels compelled to expiate an early abortion by having a live child. Webster's gloomy view of global disaster threatens to triumph in the final story, as their close friend Calvin is dying of AIDS beside a moribund Lake Michigan. Meanwhile, the one child Webster has agreed to conceive appears destined for stillbirth because Margy herself was poisoned as a fetus by misguided medical intervention. At the end of this sad, funny, moving tale, there may be hope, as life and love prove unexpectedly resilient, even in the twenty-first century.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:1582436312
ISBN13:9781582436319
Release Date:November 2010
Publisher:Catapult
Length:296 Pages
Weight:0.67 lbs.
Dimensions:0.8" x 5.6" x 8.2"
Customer Reviews
5 ratings
Eros and angst
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago
This elegant collection of prize-winning short stories makes a nearly seamless novel. The extraordinary main characters are Margy, a violinist with the CSO, and Webster, adult child of psychiatrists who wants to return to his nebulous Native American roots. Nixon is an exquisite writer who writes what she knows and seems to know a lot of things especially music and science. She is equally adept at portraying the sights, smells and sounds of love but always with a delicate touch. This sensuous reading experience should also appeal to those who are not particularly interested in reading relationship type novels because of the fine descriptive, researched and just plain gifted writing.
Smart and glamorous
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago
Angels Go Naked does everything right in showing us how things can go wrong. The price of being human is knowing not only that we will die but that we will visit disaster on ourselves and those we love. The consolation for being human is we apprehend the beauty and glamor of the world, the exquisite little wrinkles of shocking intelligence. Both that price and those consolations are evident in the pages of this wonderful novel.
moving and beautiful
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago
Like much of life itself the power I felt in this reading was in what was not said, in the spaces in between. Melodic and poetic view of humans as complex beings in relationships. It's crept back into my consciousness often after I finished it a couple of months ago.
A funny, beautiful, moving book
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago
From the first page of Angels Go Naked, I was engrossed. The format of the novel -- a series of connected stories -- is beautifully effective. By exploring a series of moments, Nixon allows to know her characters in an internal and compelling way. They are passionate, funny, and very real people. Nixon truly understands the complexity of love.Nixon's use of language is spare but illuminating. This is one of the best books I've read this year.
Brilliant Fiction about the Inner Life
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
Cornelia Nixon's fine second novel, ANGELS GO NAKED, is largely about the turbulent inner world of the psyche. Not that we don't have a fine and very tangible idea of a host of characters--well beyond the principals, Cathy the violinist in the Chicago Symphony and Webster the marine biologist working on two doctorates--and of some marvellously described places such as Bolinas, California, Chicago, New York and, briefly, Venice, Italy, but this rousing work keys on the internal life of people and the conflicts it creates with their actual existence in the world of space and time. Thus ANGELS GO NAKED is the finest--and most ancient--kind of drama, written with heart-breaking clarity and wit. Bravo! Bravissima!
Copyright © 2025 Thriftbooks.com
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information | Cookie Policy | Cookie Preferences | Accessibility Statement
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
