Synopses & Reviews
Otto and Sophie Bentwood live childless in a renovated Brooklyn brownstone. The complete works of Goethe line their bookshelf, their stainless-steel kitchen is newly installed, and their Mercedes is parked curbside. But after Sophie is bitten on the hand while trying to feed a half-starved neighborhood cat, a series of small and ominous disasters begin to plague their lives. The fault lines of their marriage are revealed -- echoing the fractures of society around them, slowly wrenching itself apart. First published in 1970 to wide acclaim, stands as one of the most dazzling and rigorous examples of the storyteller's craft in postwar American literature -- a novel that, according to Irving Howe, ranks with ", and ."
Review
" is, simply, a perfect short novel. A few characters, a small stretch of time; setting and action tightly confined--and yet, as in Tolstoy's , everything crucial within our souls bared." Andrea Barrett
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"This perfect novel about pain is as clear, and as wholly believable, and as healing, as a fever dream." Frederick Busch
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"Brilliant...[Fox] is one of the most attractive writers to come our way in a long, long time." The New Yorker
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"A perfect short novel...As in Tolstoy's , everything crucial within our souls bared." Andrea Barrett
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"Absorbing, elegant." Charles Winecoff
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"A masterwork of economical prose...Remarkable...[O]ne can only wonder who is more fatally deluded--the desperate characters of the Bentwoods' era or the hyperconfident ones of our own." Andrew O'Hehir
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"The first time I read ...I fell in love with it." Andrew O'Hehir Salon
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"Absorbing, elegant." Salon
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"Packed with lucid insights." Charles Winecoff Entertainment Weekly
Synopsis
"A towering landmark of postwar Realism. . . . A sustained work of prose so lucid and fine it seems less written than carved." -- David Foster Wallace
Synopsis
Otto and Sophie Bentwood live in a changing neighborhood in Brooklyn. Their stainless-steel kitchen is newly installed, and their Mercedes is parked curbside. After Sophie is bitten on the hand while trying to feed a stray, perhaps rabies-infected cat, a series of small and ominous disasters begin to plague the Bentwoods' lives, revealing the fault lines and fractures in a marriage and a society wrenching itself apart.
First published in 1970 to wide acclaim, Desperate Characters stands as one of the most dazzling and rigorous examples of the storyteller's craft in postwar American literature a novel that, according to Irving Howe, ranks with "Billy Budd, The Great Gatsby, Miss Lonelyhearts, and Seize the Day."
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About the Author
Paula Fox is the author of Desperate Characters, The Widow's Children, A Servant's Tale, The God of Nightmares, Poor George, The Western Coast, and Borrowed Finery: A Memoir, among other books. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.