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More copies of this ISBN:The Pesthouse: A Novelby Jim Crace
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Jim Crace is a writer of spectacular originality and a command of language that moves a reader effortlessly into the world of his imagination. In The Pesthouse he imagines an America of the future where a man and a woman trek across a devastated and dangerous landscape, finding strength in each other and an unexpected love. Once the safest, most prosperous place on earth, the United States is now a lawless, scantly populated wasteland. The machines have stopped. The government has collapsed. Farmlands lie fallow and the soil is contaminated by toxins. Across the country, families have packed up their belongings to travel eastward toward the one hope left: passage on a ship to Europe. Franklin Lopez and his brother, Jackson, are only days away from the ocean when Franklin, nearly crippled by an inflamed knee, is forced to stop. In the woods near his temporary refuge, Franklin comes upon an isolated stone building. Inside he finds Margaret, a woman with a deadly infection and confined to the Pesthouse to sweat out her fever. Tentatively, the two join forces and make their way through the ruins of old America. Confronted by bandits rounding up men for slavery, finding refuge in the Ark, a religious community that makes bizarre demands on those they shelter, Franklin and Margaret find their wariness of each other replaced by deep trust and an intimacy neither one has ever experienced before. The Pesthouse is Jim Crace's most compelling novel to date. Rich in its understanding of America's history and ethos, it is a paean to the human spirit. Review:"[A] thoughtful and exciting post-apocalyptic tale....Crace, an award-winning British writer who should be more widely appreciated, manages to give depth and complexity to characters in a post-literate society who are practically nonverbal." Library Journal Review:"Equal parts allegory, adventure story and rich meditation on existence, The Pesthouse imagines a place on the Dream Highway where the best in human nature always has a path. For that it serves as perfect complement — and tonic — to The Road." Chicago Sun-Times Review:"Less spare and more idiosyncratic, this new book risks being swamped in the tsunami of publicity for The Road. And that would be a shame, because The Pesthouse boasts three noteworthy features that McCarthy's story lacks: women characters, a smooth landing and some sly humor to leaven the bleakness. If for no other reason, read it to compare." Seattle Times Review:"The Pesthouse is no less a dark envisioning, though it lacks the startling high-wire act of Being Dead, creating instead a tooth-and-claw society in the wilds of America, somewhere on the other side of global catastrophe." Boston Globe Review:"Crace can write amazingly well, as he did in Being Dead. When he's on, as he often is here, the results are stellar." Francine Prose, The New York Times Book Review Review:"McCarthy may have cornered the market on blood-red prose that captures postapocalyptic violence and horror, but Crace provides an equally intriguing vision that seems less frenzied but not too sanguine." San Francisco Chronicle Review:"The journey in The Pesthouse is quite different from that in Cormac McCarthy's recent book, The Road, though both run through postapocalyptic landscapes....Mr. Crace is the coldest of writers, and the tenderest." Richard Eder, The New York Times Review:"The Pesthouse is never funny, but Crace's mordant humor shines darkly, making it both provocative and winsome." Los Angeles Times About the AuthorJim Crace is the author of eight previous novels. Being Dead was shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread Fiction Prize and won the U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 2000. In 1997, Quarantine was named the Whitbread Novel of the Year and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Jim Crace has also received the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the E. M. Forster Award, and the Guardian Fiction Prize. He lives in Birmingham, England. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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