This
extraordinary novel purports to be a literary biography of a writer who died at
age eleven, written by his best friend. The absurdity of the central conceit in
no way lessens its impact as a meticulously crafted, gorgeously realized evocation of mid-century childhood in America.
Though I’m a generation younger,
I was immediately transported back in time to re-visit the adventurous feeling
of daring to travel outside one’s own neighborhood, the heartsore drama of a
devastating first crush, and all the other minute particulars encountered in
the serious business of growing up.
Funny, tragic, and sometimes just plain
weird, Edwin Mullhouse in an artful,
uncategorizable book well worth reading.
A parody of a literary biography starring a 10-year-old novelist who is mysteriously dead at 11—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Martin Dressler.
As a memorial, Edwin Mullhouse's best friend, Jeffrey Cartwright, decides that the life of this great American writer must be told. He follows Edwin's development from his preverbal first noises through his love for comic books to the fulfillment of his literary genius in the remarkable novel, Cartoons.
I’m
not the jealous type, but as a fiction writer, I have to admit that Ian
McEwan’s habit of producing masterpiece after masterpiece has the potential to become tiresome.
Nonetheless, I have to report that he’s done it again: his
latest novel, Lessons, is the
well-written story of a man who had a sexual relationship with his female piano
teacher while he was a lonely teen marooned at boarding school, a relationship
he thought was genuine romantic love.
The narrative takes us through his life
in 1980s Britain and Germany, chronicling all the political turmoil of that era. It also explores the family dynamics that made him a vulnerable person and
the long-lasting effects—not all of them necessarily negative or predictable—of
his early experiences.
Discover the Sunday Times bestselling new novel from Ian McEwan.
Lessons is an intimate yet universal story of love, regret and a restless search for answers.
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Stranded at boarding school, his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
Twenty-five years later Roland's wife mysteriously vanishes, and he is left alone with their baby son. Her disappearance sparks of journey of…
I like
fiction that is both sad and funny because that approach represents the most
satisfying literary approximation of the contours of real life.
This means I
like Irish writers. Edna O’Brien’s Country
Girls trilogyis a series of three novels that follows the lives of two
friends in 1950s Ireland from the time they were naïve schoolgirls until they became world-weary married women.
The books were banned in Ireland—as much for
O’Brien’s audacity in challenging an entrenched literary patriarchy as for
their frank sexuality—but that (now quaint-seeming) controversy should not
detract a reader’s attention from what is a richly-rewarding, bawdy, sad and funny
work of art.
A treasure of world literature back in print, featuring a new introduction by Eimear McBride
This omnibus edition includes the novels The Country Girls, The Lonely Girl, and Girls in Their Married Bliss.
The country girls are Caithleen “Kate” Brady and Bridget “Baba” Brennan, and their story begins in the repressive atmosphere of a small village in the west of Ireland in the years following World War II. Kate is a romantic, looking for love; Baba is a survivor. Setting out to conquer the bright lights of Dublin, they are rewarded with comical miscommunications, furtive liaisons, bad faith, bad luck,…
Rude Babyis a literary comedy
set in the near future in a supermarket so big it contains an entire world. A
snarky store-brand baby freed from its packaging seeks wisdom from those he
meets, refusing to grow up until someone can prove the effort worthwhile.
Are
any important truths to be found in Canned Goods? What about Frozen Foods? And
who is the man with the sword? Why is he covered in blood?
