A New York Times Notable Book of 2011
A Publisher's Weekly Top 10 Book of 2011
A Kirkus Reviews Top 25 Best Fiction of 2011 Title
One of Library Journal's Best Books of 2011
A Salon Best Fiction of 2011 title
One of The Telegraph's Best Fiction Books of the Year 2011
It's the early 1980s―the country is in a deep recession, and life after college is harder than ever. In the cafés on College Hill, the wised-up kids are inhaling Derrida and listening to Talking Heads. But Madeleine Hanna, dutiful English major, is writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, purveyors of the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels.
As Madeleine tries to understand why "it became laughable to read writers like Cheever and Updike, who wrote about the suburbia Madeleine and most of her friends had grown up in, in favor of reading the Marquis de Sade, who wrote about deflowering virgins in eighteenth-century France," real life, in the form of two very different guys, intervenes. Leonard Bankhead―charismatic loner, college Darwinist, and lost Portland boy―suddenly turns up in a semiotics seminar, and soon Madeleine finds herself in a highly charged erotic and intellectual relationship with him. At the same time, her old "friend" Mitchell Grammaticus―who's been reading Christian mysticism and generally acting strange―resurfaces, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is destined to be his mate.
Over the next year, as the members of the triangle in this amazing, spellbinding novel graduate from college and enter the real world, events force them to reevaluate everything they learned in school. Leonard and Madeleine move to a biology Laboratory on Cape Cod, but can't escape the secret responsible for Leonard's seemingly inexhaustible energy and plunging moods. And Mitchell, traveling around the world to get Madeleine out of his mind, finds himself face-to-face with ultimate questions about the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the true nature of love.
Are the great love stories of the nineteenth century dead? Or can there be a new story, written for today and alive to the realities of feminism, sexual freedom, prenups, and divorce? With devastating wit and an abiding understanding of and affection for his characters, Jeffrey Eugenides revives the motivating energies of the Novel, while creating a story so contemporary and fresh that it reads like the intimate journal of our own lives.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Jeffrey Eugenides was born in Detroit and attended Brown and Stanford Universities. His first novel, The Virgin Suicides, was published by FSG to great acclaim in 1993, and he has received numerous awards for his work. In 2003, Eugenides received the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Middlesex (FSG, 2002), which was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and France's Prix Médicis.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. 1.4. Seller Inventory # 0374203059-2-1
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. First hardcover edition, fifth printing.New Fine Book & DJ .Shelf 1060. Boards and spine are straight // Binding is tight.//Pages are clean, legible, and bright // No writing in the book margins or blank spaces // No highlighting// Not remainder marked // DJ is not Price clipped// Not Ex Library// Not a Book Club. Seller Inventory # 335542
Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published 1.4. Seller Inventory # 353-0374203059-new
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Brand New Copy. Seller Inventory # BBB_new0374203059
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Buy for Great customer experience. Seller Inventory # GoldenDragon0374203059
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0374203059
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0374203059
Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0374203059
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. First Edition stated, with correct number line sequence, no writing, marks, underlining, or bookplates. No remainder marks. Spine is tight and crisp. Boards are flat and true and the corners are square. Dust jacket is not price-clipped. This collectible, " NEW" condition first edition/first printing copy is protected with a polyester archival dust jacket cover. Beautiful collectible copy. GIFT QUALITY. Seller Inventory # 004435
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0374203059