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This title in other editionseBook editionsThe Unprofessionalsby Julie Hecht
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:There is no American writer alive who is funnier, more inquisitive, or more surprising than Julie Hecht. The Unprofessionals, her first novel, whose nameless narrator also told the stories in the author's bestselling collection, Do the Windows Open?, is a mordant triumph.
It follows the friendship between the narrator — a photographer in her late forties — and a young man whom she has known since his childhood and who has always shared the narrator's dismay about the way Americans live now: our discount chain stores, our incomprehensible architecture, our preoccupation with pets, our lack of manners. As the narrator takes us through the various stages of this friendship, she also tells the story of the young man's incongruous predicament on his path to heroin addiction and the absurdities of his attempted recovery. The Unprofessionals is in part a masterpiece of comic despair, in part an illumination of the customs and mores of a new and bewildering century, in part a hilarious and sad story of two outsiders who see the world with painful clarity — and, as a whole, a novel of unexampled originality. Review:"Hecht captures the particular world-weariness of the new millennium (a not-always-appealing mix of vulnerability, petulance and narcissism), but it is her rendition of friendship in its most essential, pared-down state that gives this novel its undeniable power." Publishers Weekly Review:"Hecht's hilarious novel features the same curmudgeonly, phobic and often delicious snob of a character who narrated...Do the Windows Open?...Luckily for readers, her torment is entertaining." Lydia Millet, The Washington Post Book World Review:"[A] stunning tale of post-September 11 malaise....Blessed with the magic of Truman Capote and the insightful wit of Lorrie Moore and Ann Beattie, Hecht creates her very own lancing vision of the careless destructiveness of our world." Donna Seaman, Booklist Review:"Unparalleled in voice yet a bit lost in the big room of the novel — as if its pieces were looking for corners to hide in, brilliantly." Kirkus Reviews Review:"The Unprofessionals does something more than flirt with darkness. It bears it upon its back. [Hecht gives] many beautifully contoured reflections...to a narrator endowed with every conceivable sensitivity and a passionate spirit." The New York Times Book Review Review:"Full-throttle, up-close angst and deadpan comic sensibility....[A] deeply likeable novel....Beneath all that unapologetically desolate, funny, disaster-mode living is a tender grasp of the human condition that seems brave and resolute." The Boston Globe Review:"Impeccable....Julie Hecht is a lacerating and brilliant writer whose particular gift is the ability to see just under the surface of modern life to what's really holding most people together: anxiety." Newsday Review:"While the brilliant Hechtian humor is here, it is undermined by a jarring and contrived plot twist, and it is hard for the reader to feel the narrator's grief. In the case of The Unprofessionals, the parts are much better than the whole." Library Journal Review:"Funny, poignant...a deceptively simple but significant tale of alienation and the treacherous nature of human connection....Hecht's humor is rich and topical." The Miami Herald Review:"Wondrous...spare prose and...dead-on observations about wacked-out life today....Hecht's comedic talents...range all over the zeitgeist." Seattle Post-Intelligencer Review:"An authentic, witty, and uncustomary voice — a sharp eyed and funny revelation of privilege and pain." Alice Munro Review:"Breathaking...a triumph of bleak humor and searching intelligence....Everywhere, even at its darkest, [Hecht's] softly grieving and desperate voice stops us cold with laughter." Elizabeth Frank Review:"Julie Hecht's real subject is the sad yet comic effects of contemporary culture, which, with its nuttiness about diet, taste, child-rearing, psychotherapy, cell-phones, and the rest of it, have made neurotics, not to say goofies, of us all." Joseph Epstein Review:"I love Julie Hecht's writing. She sees the horribleness and beauty of our daily lives better than anyone else, and her humor is deadpan, wild, and sibylline. The Unprofessionals kept me reading avidly right to its last word." Ian Frazier Review:"I found The Unprofessionals sad, funny, strange, and familiar all at once. I only hope that Julie Hecht is doing her breathing exercises." Dr. Andrew Weil Review:"No one can surprise you with laughter like Julie Hecht. The Unprofessionals is that hilarious grain of sand in which Blake found universe after universe." Paul Ingram, Prairie Lights Synopsis:The voice of The Unprofessionals belongs to the same nameless, observant, and hilarious woman who told all the stories in Julie Hecht's landmark collection Do the Windows Open? But this time what's at stake is far greater — the life of a young man from a privileged family whom the narrator befriended as a boy and has watched grow into a troubled and then secretly drug-desperate adult. In a series of recollections of encounters and phone conversations starting in the young man's childhood, the narrator recounts the complaints they have in common about the modern world: the gibberish that too often passes for English, vulgar clothing, Los Angeles, and the unprofessional behavior that characterizes so many professions — from beauticians to psychiatrists. The narrator berates herself for missing the early signs of her friend's chemical problems and for not being able to help him more when he falls into real danger, and as she does so she describes her own descent into soullessness and physical disarray. One of the funniest and most trenchant lamentations over the culture of our day and age — of mobility without destination, work without dignity, wealth without purpose, and pets without manners — The Unprofessionals is Julie Hecht's masterpiece. About the AuthorJulie Hecht is the author of Do the Windows Open?, a collection of stories, all of which originally appeared in The New Yorker, and Was This Man a Genius?, a book of talks with Andy Kaufman. She has won an O. Henry Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives on the east end of Long Island in the winter and in Massachusetts in the summer. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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