All Souls (novel)
{{Short description|2008 novel by Christine Schutt}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox book
| name = All Souls
| orig title =
| translator =
| image = All Souls (Schutt novel).jpg
| caption =
| author = Christine Schutt
| cover_artist =
| country = United States
| language =
| series =
| genre =
| publisher =
| release_date = 2008
| media_type =
| pages =
| isbn =
| dewey =
| congress =
| oclc =
| preceded_by =
| followed_by =
}}
All Souls is a 2008 novel by American writer Christine Schutt. The book takes place in New York City, and follows the lives of faculty and students at the fictional Siddons School.{{cite news |last1=Knight |first1=Michael |title=On the Literary Pitfalls of Writing About the Young and Rich |url=https://lithub.com/on-the-literary-pitfalls-of-writing-about-the-young-and-rich/ |access-date=29 December 2020 |publisher=LitHub |date=30 April 2019}}
Writing and composition
The novel draws from Schutt's experience as a teacher at an all-girls school in Manhattan.{{cite journal |last1=Unferth |first1=Deb Olin |title=Correspondence with Christine Schutt |journal=Believer Magazine |date=1 May 2009 |issue=62 |url=https://believermag.com/correspondence-with-christine-schutt/ |access-date=29 December 2020}} Since the book's publication, Schutt noted "types" from the school, Nightingale-Bamford, she would include if she were to rewrite it.{{cite news |last1=Burke |first1=Michelle Y. |title=An Interview with Christine Schutt {{!}} HTMLGIANT |url=https://htmlgiant.com/random/an-interview-with-christine-schutt/ |access-date=29 December 2020 |work=htmlgiant.com |publisher=HMTLGiant |date=14 October 2012}}
All Souls was in part inspired by David Malouf's novel Remembering Babylon. Despite perception that the novel "[pushes] the boundaries of fiction"{{cite news |last1=Casey |first1=Maud |title=My So-Called Death (Published 2008) |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/books/review/Casey-t.html |access-date=29 December 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=29 August 2008}} Schutt has said she did not intend for it to do so.
Plot
The novel follows Astra Dell and her classmates at Siddons School over the course of their senior year.
Reception
=Critical reception=
All Souls received an 77% from The Lit Review, based on six critic reviews. The consensus says: "Sharp writing and masterful pacing. Some readers may find it light on story and a departure from Schutt’s previous works, but all will agree it captures the messy and gritty reality of adolescence".{{Cite web |title="All Souls" by Christine Schutt|url=http://www.thelitreview.com/all-souls-by-christine-schutt.html|access-date=12 July 2024|website=The Lit Review|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204032033/http://www.thelitreview.com/all-souls-by-christine-schutt.html|archive-date=4 Feb 2012}} On Book Marks, from four critics: two "rave" and two "mixed".{{Cite web |title=All Souls|url=https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/all-souls/|access-date=16 January 2024 |website=Book Marks}}
Maud Casey, writing for the New York Times, referred to the novel as "refreshingly strange". Casey compared the novel favorably to the work of Virginia Woolf, whose novels Schutt references in All Souls. Publishers Weekly criticized Schutt for not "[doing] enough with the familiar prep school setting to make the story resonate".{{cite news |title=All Souls |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-15-101449-1 |access-date=29 December 2020 |work=Publishers Weekly}}
In a review of Schutt's depiction of marriages, David Winters referred to the book's omniscient narrator as "[...] lending a sense of distance" to the novel, in contrast with her earlier Nightwork, which featured first person narration.{{cite news |last1=Winters |first1=David |title=Difficult Intimacies: Christine Schutt's Dark Portraits of Marriage |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/difficult-intimacies-christine-schutts-dark-portraits-of-marriage/ |access-date=29 December 2020 |work=Los Angeles Review of Books |publisher=The Los Angeles Review of Books |date=19 December 2012}}
=Honors=
All Souls was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.{{cite web |title=Finalist: All Souls, by Christine Schutt (Harcourt) |url=https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/christine-schutt |website=www.pulitzer.org |access-date=29 December 2020 |language=en}}{{cite news |last1=Charles |first1=Charles |title=Book World: It's unhappily ever after in Christine Schutt's 'Prosperous Friends' |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-world-its-unhappily-ever-after-in-christine-schutts-prosperous-friends/2012/11/20/ae058954-2817-11e2-96b6-8e6a7524553f_story.html |access-date=29 December 2020 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=20 November 2012}}