Paul Mariani

The Great Wheel

"The Great Wheel offers a pleasure rarely found: the chance to see a powerful intellect reflect on some of the most moving and universal human experiences." —Boston Book Review

Here, in his fifth book, Paul Mariani uses the trope of the wheel to chart the kinds of losses we all face in living: deaths and separations, lost loves, lost friends, lost happiness. The wheel of fortune, a ferris wheel ridden with a friend now dead, Dante's paradisal wheel, the wheel of the morning sun, by turns call up Hart Crane and Wilfrid Owen, Stevens and Williams, Whitman and Hopkins.

"This book, learned, humble . . . has the feel of being a quiet satisfaction." —Publishers Weekly