Author: Yves Navarre
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
ISBN: 9780916583286
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
When it happens you don't expect it. You don't expect anything anymore. You lose your head for just a second and someone walks into your life, turns it upside down, tenderly, brutally, making a place for himself. Even before anything has happened it's already too late. You can't tell who is choosing whom, when, how, why. You only know these things later when everything is over and each person holds the other accountable for what has gone on. These opening lines from Our Share of Time begin a story concerned with the impossibility of sustaining love, or even understanding how and why it started. In this diarylike reminiscence, Pierre Forgue, a Parisian school teacher, offers us an apologia for his past and present life as well as a bleak picture of his future. Moving between his Paris apartment and his summer cottage in Peyroc, he vacillates between love and indifference, between Duck (the young man who casually enters his life and who callously departs) and the rest of the world, between lost youth and approaching middle age.His is the universal midlife crisis accentuated by the presence of Duck, the now-you-see-him-now-you-don't young and handsome intruder who brings both happiness and misery. This novel, about the difficulty of maintaining lasting relationships, succeeds by the painstaking honesty with which Yves Navarre records events whose ending is happy, painful, and sweet.
Our Share of Time
Author: Yves Navarre
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
ISBN: 9780916583286
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
When it happens you don't expect it. You don't expect anything anymore. You lose your head for just a second and someone walks into your life, turns it upside down, tenderly, brutally, making a place for himself. Even before anything has happened it's already too late. You can't tell who is choosing whom, when, how, why. You only know these things later when everything is over and each person holds the other accountable for what has gone on. These opening lines from Our Share of Time begin a story concerned with the impossibility of sustaining love, or even understanding how and why it started. In this diarylike reminiscence, Pierre Forgue, a Parisian school teacher, offers us an apologia for his past and present life as well as a bleak picture of his future. Moving between his Paris apartment and his summer cottage in Peyroc, he vacillates between love and indifference, between Duck (the young man who casually enters his life and who callously departs) and the rest of the world, between lost youth and approaching middle age.His is the universal midlife crisis accentuated by the presence of Duck, the now-you-see-him-now-you-don't young and handsome intruder who brings both happiness and misery. This novel, about the difficulty of maintaining lasting relationships, succeeds by the painstaking honesty with which Yves Navarre records events whose ending is happy, painful, and sweet.
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
ISBN: 9780916583286
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
When it happens you don't expect it. You don't expect anything anymore. You lose your head for just a second and someone walks into your life, turns it upside down, tenderly, brutally, making a place for himself. Even before anything has happened it's already too late. You can't tell who is choosing whom, when, how, why. You only know these things later when everything is over and each person holds the other accountable for what has gone on. These opening lines from Our Share of Time begin a story concerned with the impossibility of sustaining love, or even understanding how and why it started. In this diarylike reminiscence, Pierre Forgue, a Parisian school teacher, offers us an apologia for his past and present life as well as a bleak picture of his future. Moving between his Paris apartment and his summer cottage in Peyroc, he vacillates between love and indifference, between Duck (the young man who casually enters his life and who callously departs) and the rest of the world, between lost youth and approaching middle age.His is the universal midlife crisis accentuated by the presence of Duck, the now-you-see-him-now-you-don't young and handsome intruder who brings both happiness and misery. This novel, about the difficulty of maintaining lasting relationships, succeeds by the painstaking honesty with which Yves Navarre records events whose ending is happy, painful, and sweet.
Our Family Meeting Book
Author: Elaine Hightower
Publisher: Free Spirit Publishing
ISBN: 9781575421209
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Book Description
Family meetings are proven ways to involve everyone-kids and adults-in planning, solving problems, creating traditions, and staying close. This inviting book makes family meetings meaningful, manageable, and fun for everyone. Includes 52 agendas and many write-on pages.
Publisher: Free Spirit Publishing
ISBN: 9781575421209
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Book Description
Family meetings are proven ways to involve everyone-kids and adults-in planning, solving problems, creating traditions, and staying close. This inviting book makes family meetings meaningful, manageable, and fun for everyone. Includes 52 agendas and many write-on pages.
Llama Llama Time to Share
Author: Anna Dewdney
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0670012335
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 41
Book Description
Llama has a sharing drama! Build a tower. Make a moat. Nelly's dolly sails a boat. What can Llama Llama add? Maybe sharing's not so bad. Llama Llama has new neighbors! Nelly Gnu and her mama stop by for a play date, but Llama's not so sure it's time to share all his toys. Maybe just his blocks? It could be fun to make a castle with Nelly . . . But wait--Nelly has Llama's little Fuzzy Llama! The fun turns to tears when Fuzzy Llama is ripped in two, "all because of Nelly Gnu!" Mama comes to the rescue and fixes Fuzzy, but she makes it clear: "I'll put Fuzzy on the stairs, until you're sure that you can share." Fun to read aloud and helpful to children and parents alike, Llama Llama Time to Share is for any child who needs a little encouragement in sharing.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0670012335
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 41
Book Description
Llama has a sharing drama! Build a tower. Make a moat. Nelly's dolly sails a boat. What can Llama Llama add? Maybe sharing's not so bad. Llama Llama has new neighbors! Nelly Gnu and her mama stop by for a play date, but Llama's not so sure it's time to share all his toys. Maybe just his blocks? It could be fun to make a castle with Nelly . . . But wait--Nelly has Llama's little Fuzzy Llama! The fun turns to tears when Fuzzy Llama is ripped in two, "all because of Nelly Gnu!" Mama comes to the rescue and fixes Fuzzy, but she makes it clear: "I'll put Fuzzy on the stairs, until you're sure that you can share." Fun to read aloud and helpful to children and parents alike, Llama Llama Time to Share is for any child who needs a little encouragement in sharing.
Garner's Quotations
Author: Dwight Garner
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374722145
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
A selection of favorite quotes that the celebrated literary critic has collected over the decades. From Dwight Garner, the New York Times book critic, comes a rollicking, irreverent, scabrous, amazingly alive selection of unforgettable moments from forty years of wide and deep reading. Garner’s Quotations is like no commonplace book you’ll ever read. If you’ve ever wondered what’s really going on in the world of letters today, this book will make you sit up and take notice. Unputdownable!
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374722145
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
A selection of favorite quotes that the celebrated literary critic has collected over the decades. From Dwight Garner, the New York Times book critic, comes a rollicking, irreverent, scabrous, amazingly alive selection of unforgettable moments from forty years of wide and deep reading. Garner’s Quotations is like no commonplace book you’ll ever read. If you’ve ever wondered what’s really going on in the world of letters today, this book will make you sit up and take notice. Unputdownable!
The Prophets
Author: Robert Jones, Jr.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593085701
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
Best Book of the Year NPR • The Washington Post • Boston Globe • TIME • USA Today • Entertainment Weekly • Real Simple • Parade • Buzzfeed • Electric Literature • LitHub • BookRiot • PopSugar • Goop • Library Journal • BookBub • KCRW • Finalist for the National Book Award • One of the New York Times Notable Books of the Year • One of the New York Times Best Historical Fiction of the Year • Instant New York Times Bestseller A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence. Isaiah was Samuel's and Samuel was Isaiah's. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favor by preaching the master's gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel's love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation's harmony. With a lyricism reminiscent of Toni Morrison, Robert Jones, Jr., fiercely summons the voices of slaver and enslaved alike, from Isaiah and Samuel to the calculating slave master to the long line of women that surround them, women who have carried the soul of the plantation on their shoulders. As tensions build and the weight of centuries—of ancestors and future generations to come—culminates in a climactic reckoning, The Prophets fearlessly reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, but is also shot through with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of love.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593085701
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
Best Book of the Year NPR • The Washington Post • Boston Globe • TIME • USA Today • Entertainment Weekly • Real Simple • Parade • Buzzfeed • Electric Literature • LitHub • BookRiot • PopSugar • Goop • Library Journal • BookBub • KCRW • Finalist for the National Book Award • One of the New York Times Notable Books of the Year • One of the New York Times Best Historical Fiction of the Year • Instant New York Times Bestseller A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence. Isaiah was Samuel's and Samuel was Isaiah's. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favor by preaching the master's gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel's love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation's harmony. With a lyricism reminiscent of Toni Morrison, Robert Jones, Jr., fiercely summons the voices of slaver and enslaved alike, from Isaiah and Samuel to the calculating slave master to the long line of women that surround them, women who have carried the soul of the plantation on their shoulders. As tensions build and the weight of centuries—of ancestors and future generations to come—culminates in a climactic reckoning, The Prophets fearlessly reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, but is also shot through with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of love.
The Buried Giant
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385353227
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Never Let Me Go and the Booker Prize–winning novel The Remains of the Day comes a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory. In post-Arthurian Britain, the wars that once raged between the Saxons and the Britons have finally ceased. Axl and Beatrice, an elderly British couple, set off to visit their son, whom they haven't seen in years. And, because a strange mist has caused mass amnesia throughout the land, they can scarcely remember anything about him. As they are joined on their journey by a Saxon warrior, his orphan charge, and an illustrious knight, Axl and Beatrice slowly begin to remember the dark and troubled past they all share. By turns savage, suspenseful, and intensely moving, The Buried Giant is a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385353227
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Never Let Me Go and the Booker Prize–winning novel The Remains of the Day comes a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory. In post-Arthurian Britain, the wars that once raged between the Saxons and the Britons have finally ceased. Axl and Beatrice, an elderly British couple, set off to visit their son, whom they haven't seen in years. And, because a strange mist has caused mass amnesia throughout the land, they can scarcely remember anything about him. As they are joined on their journey by a Saxon warrior, his orphan charge, and an illustrious knight, Axl and Beatrice slowly begin to remember the dark and troubled past they all share. By turns savage, suspenseful, and intensely moving, The Buried Giant is a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory.
The Fugitive
Author: Marcel Proust
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525505539
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 383
Book Description
The long-awaited penultimate volume--"the very summit of Proust's art" (Slate)--in the acclaimed Penguin translation of Marcel Proust's greatest work, in time for the 150th anniversary of his birth "The greatest literary work of the twentieth century." --The New York Times A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with flaps and deckle-edged paper Peter Collier's acclaimed translation of The Fugitive introduces a new generation of American readers to the literary riches of Marcel Proust. The sixth and penultimate volume in Penguin Classics' superb new edition of In Search of Lost Time--the first completely new translation of Proust's masterpiece since the 1920s--brings us a more comic and lucid prose than readers of English have previously been able to enjoy. "Miss Albertine has left!" So begins The Fugitive, the second part of what is often referred to as "the Albertine cycle," or books five and six of In Search of Lost Time. As Marcel struggles to endure Albertine's departure and vanquish his loss, he ends up in an anguished search for the essential truth of the enigmatic fugitive, whose love affairs with other women provoke in him jealousy and a new understanding of sexuality. Eventually, he lets go of Albertine and begins to find himself, discovering his own long-lost inner sources of creativity. For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525505539
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 383
Book Description
The long-awaited penultimate volume--"the very summit of Proust's art" (Slate)--in the acclaimed Penguin translation of Marcel Proust's greatest work, in time for the 150th anniversary of his birth "The greatest literary work of the twentieth century." --The New York Times A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with flaps and deckle-edged paper Peter Collier's acclaimed translation of The Fugitive introduces a new generation of American readers to the literary riches of Marcel Proust. The sixth and penultimate volume in Penguin Classics' superb new edition of In Search of Lost Time--the first completely new translation of Proust's masterpiece since the 1920s--brings us a more comic and lucid prose than readers of English have previously been able to enjoy. "Miss Albertine has left!" So begins The Fugitive, the second part of what is often referred to as "the Albertine cycle," or books five and six of In Search of Lost Time. As Marcel struggles to endure Albertine's departure and vanquish his loss, he ends up in an anguished search for the essential truth of the enigmatic fugitive, whose love affairs with other women provoke in him jealousy and a new understanding of sexuality. Eventually, he lets go of Albertine and begins to find himself, discovering his own long-lost inner sources of creativity. For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Caste
Author: Isabel Wilkerson
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0593230272
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 545
Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions—now with a new Afterword by the author. #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Post, The New York Public Library, Fortune, Smithsonian Magazine, Marie Claire, Slate, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews Winner of the Carl Sandberg Literary Award • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • National Book Award Longlist • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlist • Kirkus Prize Finalist “As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.” In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched, and beautifully written narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Original and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0593230272
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 545
Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions—now with a new Afterword by the author. #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Post, The New York Public Library, Fortune, Smithsonian Magazine, Marie Claire, Slate, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews Winner of the Carl Sandberg Literary Award • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • National Book Award Longlist • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlist • Kirkus Prize Finalist “As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.” In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched, and beautifully written narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Original and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Author: Jennifer Egan
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307593622
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER • With music pulsing on every page, this startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption “features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting gloriously, infuriatingly human” (The Chicago Tribune). One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. “Pitch perfect.... Darkly, rippingly funny.... Egan possesses a satirist’s eye and a romance novelist’s heart.” —The New York Times Book Review
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307593622
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER • With music pulsing on every page, this startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption “features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting gloriously, infuriatingly human” (The Chicago Tribune). One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. “Pitch perfect.... Darkly, rippingly funny.... Egan possesses a satirist’s eye and a romance novelist’s heart.” —The New York Times Book Review
The Sellout
Author: Paul Beatty
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374712247
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Winner of the Man Booker Prize Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction Winner of the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature New York Times Bestseller Los Angeles Times Bestseller Named One of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review Named a Best Book of the Year by Newsweek, The Denver Post, BuzzFeed, Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly Named a "Must-Read" by Flavorwire and New York Magazine's "Vulture" Blog A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality—the black Chinese restaurant. Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens—on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles—the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral. Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident—the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins—he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374712247
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Winner of the Man Booker Prize Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction Winner of the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature New York Times Bestseller Los Angeles Times Bestseller Named One of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review Named a Best Book of the Year by Newsweek, The Denver Post, BuzzFeed, Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly Named a "Must-Read" by Flavorwire and New York Magazine's "Vulture" Blog A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality—the black Chinese restaurant. Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens—on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles—the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral. Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident—the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins—he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.