Book description
A remarkable multigenerational novel, The Border of Paradise transports readers into the world of an iconoclastic midcentury family. In booming postwar Brooklyn, the Nowak Piano Company is an American success story. There is just one problem: the Nowak's only son, David. A handsome kid and shy like his mother, David…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Border of Paradise as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This book is not for the faint of heart, but I loved all its disturbing, cyclical layers. Wang’s debut is a darkly mythical tale about inherited madness and sexual obsession.
Spanning decades, from the forties to the seventies, it centers around the Nowaks: David, the schizophrenic heir to a piano maker’s fortune; Jia-Hui (later Daisy), his wife from Taiwan; their son William; and Gillian, David’s daughter from an affair with his former sweetheart, who gives up their child to him and Daisy.
Its complex themes of mental illness, misogyny, and incest are difficult and possibly unpalatable for some. But for…
From Chin-Sun's list on distressed women.
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