Anita Shreve, Author Whose Literary Novels Were Painted As ‘Commercial’ After Oprah Chose One For H71er Book Club, Has Died At

Shreve enjoyed putting her protagonists, usually women, in stressful situations. She “drew critical acclaim and a large following with books like ‘The Weight of Water’ (1997), an intricate story involving a long-ago crime and present-day dramas. Susan Kenney, reviewing that book in The New York Times, described it as ‘a cryptic long-lost narrative inside an impending family tragedy wrapped in a true-crime murder mystery framed by the aftermath of all of the above.'”