Synopses & Reviews
Seven Types of Ambiguity is a psychological thriller and a literary adventure of breathtaking scope. Celebrated as a novelist in the tradition of Jonathan Franzen and Philip Roth, Elliot Perlman writes of impulse and paralysis, empty marriages, lovers, gambling, and the stock market; of adult children and their parents; of poetry and prostitution, psychiatry and the law. Comic, poetic, and full of satiric insight, Seven Types of Ambiguity is, above all, a deeply romantic novel that speaks with unforgettable force about the redemptive power of love.
The story is told in seven parts, by six different narrators, whose lives are entangled in unexpected ways. Following years of unrequited love, an out-of-work schoolteacher decides to take matters into his own hands, triggering a chain of events that neither he nor his psychiatrist could have anticipated. Brimming with emotional, intellectual, and moral dilemmas, this novel-reminiscent of the richest fiction of the nineteenth century in its labyrinthine complexity-unfolds at a rapid-fire pace to reveal the full extent to which these people have been affected by one another and by the insecure and uncertain times in which they live. Our times, now.
Review
"[T]he novel works, and, for many readers, it will work in spades. The Australian-born Perlman reaches for the brass ring, and he successfully shapes this heady material into an all-too-rare literary page-turner." Library Journal
Review
"Long enough to tell everything that needs to be told, but never ponderous and never overdone. George Eliot down under." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"This is a brilliant book, written in the unadorned style of a Raymond Carver, but with the wild metaphysical vision of a Thomas Pynchon. It is that most unusual thing a novel that is both intellectually fun and spiritually harrowing." Baltimore Sun
Review
"Seven Types of Ambiguity amply rewards as well as frustrates the indulgent reader's patience." The Village Voice
Review
"[T]his is an exciting gamble of a novel, one willing to lose its shirt in its bid to hold you. Be prepared to give it time. Be prepared to skim when you come to a particularly annoying digression. But most of all be prepared to stay with it for the long haul. It's worth it." Daphne Merkin, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"To read Australian author Elliot Perlman's epic second novel, Seven Types of Ambiguity, is to undergo a two-week therapy session....As we dig ravenously through Perlman's sentences, our charge is to sort fact from fiction, perception from actuality. It's a task as damning as it is enjoyable." Tyler Cabot, Esquire (read the entire Esquire review)
Synopsis
Seven Types of Ambiguity is a psychological thriller and a literary adventure of breathtaking scope. Celebrated as a novelist in the tradition of Jonathan Franzen and Philip Roth, Elliot Perlman writes of impulse and paralysis, empty marriages, lovers, gambling, and the stock market; of adult children and their parents; of poetry and prostitution, psychiatry and the law. Comic, poetic, and full of satiric insight,
Seven Types of Ambiguity is, above all, a deeply romantic novel that speaks with unforgettable force about the redemptive power of love.
The story is told in seven parts, by six different narrators, whose lives are entangled in unexpected ways. Following years of unrequired love, an out-of-work schoolteacher decides to take matters into his own hands, triggering a chain of events that neither he nor his psychiatrist could have anticipated. Brimming with emotional, intellectual, and moral dilemmas, this novel reminiscent of the richest fiction of the nineteenth century in its labyrinthine complexity unfolds at a rapid-fire pace to reveal the full extent to which these people have been affected by one another and by the insecure and uncertain times in which they live. Our times, now.
Synopsis
After years of unrequited love, a lonely man commits a desperate act that affects the lives of everyone it touches, triggering a chain of events no one could have anticipated.
About the Author
Elliot Perlman is the recipient of the Queensland Premier's Award for Advancing Public Debate and has been described by the Times Literary Supplement (UK) as "Australia's outstanding social novelist" and by Le Nouvel Observateur (France) as the "Zola d'Australie". His books have been translated into numerous languages and have been published to international acclaim.
He lives in New York and Melbourne, where he works as a barrister.