50
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Featured Preorders
    • Award Winners
    • Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • Bookseller Displays
    • 50 Books for 50 Years
    • 25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Journals and Notebooks
    • socks
    • Games
  • Sell Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store

Don't Miss

  • Scientifically Proven Sale
  • Staff Top Fives of 2022
  • Best Books of 2022
  • Powell's Author Events
  • Oregon Battle of the Books
  • Audio Books

Visit Our Stores


Kelsey Ford: From the Stacks: J. M. Ledgard's Submergence (0 comment)
Our blog feature, "From the Stacks," features our booksellers’ favorite older books: those fortuitous used finds, underrated masterpieces, and lesser known treasures. Basically: the books that we’re the most passionate about handselling. This week, we’re featuring Kelsey F.’s pick, Submergence by J. M. Ledgard...
Read More»
  • Kelsey Ford: Five Book Friday: Year of the Rabbit (0 comment)
  • Kelsey Ford: Powell's Picks Spotlight: Grady Hendrix's 'How to Sell a Haunted House' (0 comment)

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##

Asymmetry

by Lisa Halliday
Asymmetry

  • Comment on this title
  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9781501166761
ISBN10: 150116676X
Condition: Standard
DustJacket: Standard

All Product Details

View Larger ImageView Larger Images
Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$11.95
List Price:$26.00
Used Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
QtyStore
2Burnside

Staff Pick

Philip Roth is not dead. He is alive and well within the story and writing of Asymmetry. One of the main characters looks and acts a lot like the late Roth and it's obvious Halliday was influenced by the greatest author of the last 50 years. It is incredible and thought-provoking how first-time author Halliday connects the first and second half of her novel together as she tells two very different stories. After reading the first half, describing a young woman and her affair with an older well-known Jewish author, it was exciting to think through how it connected to the second story of an Iraqi American trying to get through customs at the London airport. This book had me hooked! Recommended By Jeffrey J., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"Asymmetry is extraordinary. . . Halliday has written, somehow all at once, a transgressive roman a clef, a novel of ideas and a politically engaged work of metafiction." --Alice Gregory, The New York Times Book Review

"A brilliant and complex examination of power dynamics in love and war." --Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

"A scorchingly intelligent first novel. . . Asymmetry will make you a better reader, a more active noticer. It hones your senses." --Parul Seghal, The New York Times

A singularly inventive and unforgettable debut novel about love, luck, and the inextricability of life and art, from 2017 Whiting Award winner Lisa Halliday.

Told in three distinct and uniquely compelling sections, Asymmetry explores the imbalances that spark and sustain many of our most dramatic human relations: inequities in age, power, talent, wealth, fame, geography, and justice. The first section, "Folly," tells the story of Alice, a young American editor, and her relationship with the famous and much older writer Ezra Blazer. A tender and exquisite account of an unexpected romance that takes place in New York during the early years of the Iraq War, "Folly" also suggests an aspiring novelist's coming-of-age. By contrast, "Madness" is narrated by Amar, an Iraqi-American man who, on his way to visit his brother in Kurdistan, is detained by immigration officers and spends the last weekend of 2008 in a holding room in Heathrow. These two seemingly disparate stories gain resonance as their perspectives interact and overlap, with yet new implications for their relationship revealed in an unexpected coda.

A stunning debut from a rising literary star, Asymmetry is an urgent, important, and truly original work that will captivate any reader while also posing arresting questions about the very nature of fiction itself.

Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

"Asymmetry is extraordinary...Halliday has written, somehow all at once, a transgressive roman a clef, a novel of ideas and a politically engaged work of metafiction." --Alice Gregory, The New York Times Book Review

"A brilliant and complex examination of power dynamics in love and war." --Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

"A scorchingly intelligent first novel...Asymmetry will make you a better reader, a more active noticer. It hones your senses." --Parul Seghal, The New York Times

A singularly inventive and unforgettable debut novel about love, luck, and the inextricability of life and art, from 2017 Whiting Award winner Lisa Halliday.

Told in three distinct and uniquely compelling sections, Asymmetry explores the imbalances that spark and sustain many of our most dramatic human relations: inequities in age, power, talent, wealth, fame, geography, and justice. The first section, "Folly," tells the story of Alice, a young American editor, and her relationship with the famous and much older writer Ezra Blazer. A tender and exquisite account of an unexpected romance that takes place in New York during the early years of the Iraq War, "Folly" also suggests an aspiring novelist's coming-of-age. By contrast, "Madness" is narrated by Amar, an Iraqi-American man who, on his way to visit his brother in Kurdistan, is detained by immigration officers and spends the last weekend of 2008 in a holding room in Heathrow. These two seemingly disparate stories gain resonance as their perspectives interact and overlap, with yet new implications for their relationship revealed in an unexpected coda.

A stunning debut from a rising literary star, Asymmetry is an urgent, important, and truly original work that will captivate any reader while also posing arresting questions about the very nature of fiction itself.

Synopsis

A TIME and NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK of the YEAR * New York Times Notable Book and Times Critic's Top Book of 2018

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2018 BY * Elle * Bustle * Kirkus Reviews * Lit Hub* NPR * O, The Oprah Magazine * Shelf Awareness

"Asymmetry is extraordinary...Halliday has written, somehow all at once, a transgressive roman a clef, a novel of ideas and a politically engaged work of metafiction." --Alice Gregory, The New York Times Book Review

"A brilliant and complex examination of power dynamics in love and war." --Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

"A scorchingly intelligent first novel...Asymmetry will make you a better reader, a more active noticer. It hones your senses." --Parul Seghal, The New York Times

A singularly inventive and unforgettable debut novel about love, luck, and the inextricability of life and art, from 2017 Whiting Award winner Lisa Halliday.

Told in three distinct and uniquely compelling sections, Asymmetry explores the imbalances that spark and sustain many of our most dramatic human relations: inequities in age, power, talent, wealth, fame, geography, and justice. The first section, "Folly," tells the story of Alice, a young American editor, and her relationship with the famous and much older writer Ezra Blazer. A tender and exquisite account of an unexpected romance that takes place in New York during the early years of the Iraq War, "Folly" also suggests an aspiring novelist's coming-of-age. By contrast, "Madness" is narrated by Amar, an Iraqi-American man who, on his way to visit his brother in Kurdistan, is detained by immigration officers and spends the last weekend of 2008 in a holding room in Heathrow. These two seemingly disparate stories gain resonance as their perspectives interact and overlap, with yet new implications for their relationship revealed in an unexpected coda.

A stunning debut from a rising literary star, Asymmetry is an urgent, important, and truly original work that will captivate any reader while also posing arresting questions about the very nature of fiction itself.


3.5 2

What Our Readers Are Saying

Share your thoughts on this title!
Average customer rating 3.5 (2 comments)

`
Lukas , July 13, 2018 (view all comments by Lukas)
"This is because politics in imaginative work is like a shot in the middle of a concert. The noise is deafening but it imparts no energy." A woman gets involved with an older writer. An economist is detained at the airport. Year later, the writer is interviewed by the BBC. These are the three stories/sections that make of "Asymmetry," the celebrated the debut novel From Lisa Halliday. I went into this with high expectations but found the characters flat and the story somewhat hard to get into. Two debut novels that I thought were more compelling: "Neon in Daylight" and "Conversations with Friends."

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

report this comment

`
kevinrbrown , May 18, 2018 (view all comments by kevinrbrown)
This book didn't blow me away, but it made me keep thinking about it long after I had finished it. A book that can do that is well worth the time. Halliday puts two seemingly unrelated stories together, both of which would have been interesting enough on their own, to raise questions about our selves and others.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

(2 of 2 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment




Product Details

ISBN:
9781501166761
Binding:
Hardcover
Publication date:
02/06/2018
Publisher:
SIMON & SCHUSTER TRADE
Pages:
288
Height:
1.00IN
Width:
5.60IN
Author:
Lisa Halliday

Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$11.95
List Price:$26.00
Used Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
QtyStore
2Burnside

More copies of this ISBN

  • Used, Hardcover, Starting from $9.95
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Transparency ACT MRF
  • Sitemap
  • © 2023 POWELLS.COM Terms

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##