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THE END OF ALICE treads the wafer-thin line between the evil and
the everyday, following the correspondence of two paedophiles. One,
the narrator, is a child-killer, serving his twenty-third year in
prison. The other, his seemingly sweet admirer, is a
nineteen-year-old woman, intent on seducing a young neighbourhood
boy. Teetering on the knife's edge between the American Dream and
the American Nightmare, THE END OF ALICE unpicks the darkness of
inconceivable desire, and the destruction and horror left in its
wake.
WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 'Reads like a brilliant
miniseries ... has the narrative intensity of Jonathan Franzen's
The Corrections and the emotional punch of Siri Hustvedt's What I
Loved.' Observer Harold Silver has spent a lifetime watching his
taller, smarter, and more successful younger brother George acquire
a covetable wife, two kids, and a beautiful home in New York City.
But Harry also knows his brother has a murderous temper. When
George loses control the result is an act of violence so shocking
that both brothers are hurled into entirely new lives in which they
both must seek absolution. Suddenly Harry finds himself playing
parent to his brother's two adolescent children, tumbling down a
rabbit hole of online sex, and dealing with aging parents who move
through life like travellers on a fantastic voyage. And he is
forced to confront the ways in which our histories can either
compel us to repeat our mistakes - or become the catalyst for
change. May We Be Forgiven is a darkly funny tale exploring how one
deeply fractured family might begin to put itself back together.
'An unflinching account of a catastrophic, violent, black-comic,
transformative year in the history of one broken American family.
Flat-out amazing' Salman Rushdie
From the 2013 Orange Prize-winning author of "May We Be
Forgiven."..
Only a work of such searing, meticulously controlled brilliance
could provoke such a wide range of visceral responses. Here is the
incredible story of an imprisoned pedophile who is drawn into an
erotically charged correspondence with a nineteen-year-old suburban
coed. As the two reveal -- and revel in -- their obsessive desires,
Homes creates in "The End of Alice" a novel that is part romance,
part horror story, at once unnerving and seductive.
The stories in The Safety of Objects are both bizarre and
believable, very funny but also frightening and sad. A girl's
blonde Barbie doll seduces her teenage brother in an intense
episode of erotic obsession; a couple go off the rails and smoke
crack while their children are staying with their grandmother; and
a lawyer seeks revenge on his boss by urinating into his potted
plant every evening.
'Breathtakingly accurate satire and laser-cut portraits of American
life from a seriously heavyweight author whose snapshots remain
etched on the retinas' Evening Standard '...a writer to go
travelling with on the journey called life' Jeanette Winterson
'...one of our most important and original writers of fiction' Jay
McInerney 'Ms. Homes just gets better and better' Gary Shteyngart
'a provocative and eloquent writer, and her vision of the way we
live now is anything but safe' Meg Wolitzer ''Homes is a
devastating satirist..' Lionel Shriver 'at her merciless satirical
best' Tessa Hadley 'These defiantly comic stories are like
postcards from contemporary America' Summer Books round up, Mail on
Sunday The winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction returns with
signature humour and psychological accuracy, to tell thirteen
stories exposing the heart of an uneasy 21st-century America. In
tales of a family obsessed with the surfaces of their lives, or the
story of a shopper who suddenly finds himself nominated to run for
President, she explores our attachments to each other through
characters who aren't quite who they hoped to become, though there
is no one else they can be. Her first book since the Women's
Prize-winning May We Be Forgiven, Days of Awe is another visionary,
fearless and outrageously funny work from a master storyteller.
Jack is a teenager who wants nothing more than to be normal - even
if being normal means having divorced parents and a rather strange
best friend. But when Jack's father takes him out rowing on a lake
and tells his son that he's gay, nothing will ever be normal again.
Out of Jack's struggle to redefine 'family', comes a work of
enormous humour, charm and resonance, the most convincing, funny
and insightful novel about adolescence since The Catcher in the
Rye.
Paul and Elaine have two boys and a beautiful home, yet they find
themselves thoroughly, inexplicably stuck. Obsessed with 'making
things good again', they spin the quiet terrors of family life into
a fantastical frenzy that careers well and truly out of control. As
A.M. Homes's incendiary novel unfolds, the technicolour hues of the
American good life become nearly hallucinogenic: from a strange and
hilarious encounter on the floor of the pantry with a Stepford Wife
neighbour, to a house-cleaning team in space suits, to a hostage
situation at the school. Homes lays bare the foundations of
marriage and family life and creates characters outrageously
flawed, deeply human and entirely believable.
For Claire Roth, an established psychotherapist with an adoring
husband and children, her new patient - Jody Goodman, a witty and
attractive young filmmaker - is a welcome diversion from her
predictable life. Jody, successful, yet uncertain, is disarmed by
Claire's interest and approval. Gradually, the boundaries between
friendship and family, between love and compulsion, start to blur -
especially when one of them starts to believe fanatically that some
things simply cannot be coincidences, and that what they share, in
fact, is the deepest bond of all. In a Country of Mothers is a
transfixing psychological thriller, and with it A.M. Homes forces
us to confront our own judgements about sanity, danger and desire.
On the day that A. M. Homes was born in 1961, she was given up for
adoption. Her birth parents were a twenty-two year old woman and an
older married man with whom she was having an affair. Thirty years
later, out of the blue, Homes was contacted by a lawyer on behalf
of her birth mother, and they began to correspond; her biological
father contacted her soon after. These two individuals and their
effect on the adult Homes are strange and unexpected, and the story
spirals into something utterly raw and hilarious, heartbreaking and
absurd. Along the way, Homes describes the clash between her
childhood fantasies of her birth parents and the disappointing
reality. She writes about the experience of experiencing biological
resemblance for the first time (in 'My Father's Ass') and the
addictiveness of the genealogical research she embarks on. She
reflects on the significance of DNA testing and having two mothers
and two fathers and unearths profound truths about her family and
herself. Finally, she writes movingly about her own baby daughter
and the way she has recently helped to mend Homes' fractured life.
Things You Should Know is a collection of dazzling stories by one
of the most talented and daring young American writers, whose
distinctive narratives demonstrate how extraordinary the ordinary
can be. A woman pursues an unconventional strategy for getting
pregnant; a former First Lady shows despair and courage in dealing
with her husband's Alzheimer's; a teacher's list of 'things you
already should know but maybe are a little dumb, so you don't'
becomes an obsession for someone who wasn't at school the day it
was given out; and adult tragedy intrudes into a childhood
friendship. The stories are full of magic and strangeness and
humour, but also demonstrate an uncanny emotional accuracy and
compassion.
FROM THE WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION. A.M Homes returns
with signature humour and psychological accuracy, to tell thirteen
stories exposing the heart of an uneasy 21st-century America. In
tales of a family obsessed with the surfaces of their lives, or the
story of a shopper who suddenly finds himself nominated to run for
President, she explores our attachments to each other through
characters who aren't quite who they hoped to become, though there
is no one else they can be. Her first book since the Women's
Prize-winning May We Be Forgiven, Days of Awe is another visionary,
fearless and outrageously funny work from a master storyteller.
In Jack, A. M. Homes gives us a teenager who wants nothing more than to be normal -- even if being normal means having divorced parents and a rather strange best friend. But when Jack's father takes him out in a rowboat on Lake Watchmayoyo and tells his son he's gay, nothing will ever be normal again. Out of Jack's struggle to redefine what "family" means, A. M. Homes crafts a novel of enormous humor, charm, and resonance, the most convincing, funny, and insightful novel about adolescence since The Catcher In The Rye.
As A.M. Homes's incendiary novel unfolds, the Kodacolor hues of the good life become nearly hallucinogenic. Laying bare th foundations of a marriage, flash frozen in the anxious entropy of a suburban subdivision, Paul and Elaine spin the quit terors of family life into a fantastical frenzy that careens out of control. From a strange and hilarious encounter with a Stepford Wife neighbor to an ill-conceived plan for a tattoo, to a sexy cop who shows up at all the wrong moments, to a housecleaning team in space suits, a mistress calling on a cell phone, and a hostage situationat a school, A.M. Homes creates characters so outrageously flawed and deeply human that thery are entriely believable.
The dazzling new state-of-the-nation novel from one of America's
most significant contemporary writers and winner of the Women's
Prize for May We Be Forgiven, which explores the makings of our
political times. --- 'A terrific black comedy, written almost
entirely in pitch-perfect dialogue, that feels terrifyingly close
to the unfunny truth' - Salman Rushdie The Big Guy loves his
family, money and democracy. Undone by the results of the 2008
Presidential election, he taps a group of like-minded men to
reclaim their version of America. As they build a scheme to disturb
and disrupt, the Big Guy also faces turbulence within his family
and must take responsibility for his past actions. For his wife and
daughter are having their own awakenings: self-denying Charlotte
enters rehab, and eighteen year old Megan, who has voted for the
first time, explores a political future that deviates from her
father's ideology, while delving into deeply buried family secrets.
Dark, funny and prescient, The Unfolding explores the implosion of
the dream and how we arrived in today's divided world. 'From her
first book onward, A. M. Holmes has been challenging us to look at
fiction, the world, and one another as we haven't done-because we
haven't had the nerve, the eyes, the dire and dispassionate
imagination. Gripping, sad, funny, by turns aching and antic and,
as always, exceedingly well-observed and written, The Unfolding
opens up another one of her jagged windows, at times
indistinguishable from a crack, in the world that is always
unfolding, and always vanishing, around us' - Michael Chabon
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Rob Wynne: Obstacle Illusion (Hardcover)
Rob Wynne; Introduction by A.M. Homes; Text written by Michael Duncan, Ed Leffingwell; Interview by Linda Yablonsky
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R1,206
Discovery Miles 12 060
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Harry is a Richard Nixon scholar who leads a quiet, regular life;
his brother George is a high-flying TV producer, with a murderous
temper.They have been uneasy rivals since childhood.Then one day
George loses control so extravagantly that he precipitates Harry
into an entirely new life. In May We Be Forgiven, Homes gives us a
darkly comic look at 21st century domestic life - at individual
lives spiraling out of control, bound together by family and
history.The cast of characters experience adultery, accidents,
divorce, and death. But this is also a savage and dizzyingly
inventive vision of contemporary America, whose dark heart Homes
penetrates like no other writer - the strange jargons of its
language, its passive aggressive institutions, its inhabitants'
desperate craving for intimacy and their pushing it away with
litigation, technology, paranoia. At the novel's heart are the
spaces in between, where the modern family comes together to
re-form itself. May We Be Forgiven explores contemporary orphans
losing and finding themselves anew; and it speaks above all to the
power of personal transformation - simultaneously terrifying and
inspiring.
Since her debut in 1989, A. M. Homes has been among the boldest and
most original voices of her generation, acclaimed for the
psychological accuracy and unnerving emotional intensity of her
storytelling. Her ability to explore how extraordinary the ordinary
can be is at the heart of her touching and funny new novel, her
first in six years. "This Book Will Save Your Life" is a vivid,
uplifting, and revealing story about compassion, transformation,
and what can happen if you are willing to lose yourself and open up
to the world around you.
Short listed for the Richard & Judy Book Club 2007.An uplifting
story set in Los Angeles about one man's effort to bring himself
back to life. Richard is a modern day everyman; a middle-aged
divorcee trading stocks out of his home. He has done such a good
job getting his life under control that he needs no one. His life
has slowed almost to a standstill, until two incidents conspire to
hurl him back into the world. One day he wakes up with a knotty
cramp in his back, which rapidly develops into an all-consuming
pain. At the same time a wide sinkhole appears outside his living
room window, threatening the foundations of his house. A vivid
novel about compassion and transformation, This Book Will Save Your
Life reveals what can happen if you are willing to open up to the
world around you. Since her debut in 1989, A.M. Homes has been
among the boldest and most original voices of her generation,
acclaimed for the psychological accuracy and unnerving emotional
intensity of her storytelling. Her keen ability to explore how
extraordinary the ordinary can be is at the heart of her touching
and funny new novel, her first in six years.
This anthology is an exclusive look at the country's most promising
new writers. These 10 stories of extraordinary literary merit
represent a showcase of talented writing through original pieces of
fiction and narrative nonfiction, chosen for publication by "New
York Times"-bestselling author, AM Homes. This anthology speaks to
a readership with an appreciation of short literary fiction and
compelling narrative nonfiction. Selected stories include works by
Nelson Algren Finalist, Andrew Payton, and Burning River Chapbook
Contest winner, Dustin M. Hoffman, as well as numerous Pushcart
Prize nominees.
On the day that Homes was born in 1961, she was given up for
adoption. Her birth parents were a twenty-two year old woman and an
older married man with whom she was having an affair. Thirty years
later, out of the blue, Homes was contacted by a lawyer on behalf
of her birth mother, and they began to correspond; her biological
father contacted her soon after. These two individuals and their
effect on the adult Homes are strange and unexpected, and the story
spirals into something utterly raw and hilarious, heartbreaking and
absurd. Along the way, Homes describes the clash between her
childhood fantasies of her birth parents and the disappointing
reality. She writes about the experience of experiencing biological
resemblance for the first time, in "My Father's Ass", and the
addictiveness of the genealogical research she embarks on. She
reflects on the significance of DNA testing, and having two mothers
and two fathers. She unearths profound truths about her family and
herself. Finally, she writes very movingly about her own baby
daughter, and the way she has recently helped to mend Homes'
fractured life.
No relationship is more charged than that between a psychotherapist
and her patient--unless it is the relationship between a mother and
her daughter. This disturbing literary thriller explores what
happens when the line between those relationships blurs.
Jody Goodman enters psychotherapy with questions of career and love
on her mind. But Claire Roth, her therapist, keeps changing the
focus of their sessions to Jody's parentage--Jody was adopted;
Claire gave up a baby for adoption who would now be exactly Jody's
age. As the two women become increasingly involved, speculation
turns into certainty, fantasy into fixation. Until suddenly it is
no longer clear just which of them needs the other more--or with
more terrifying consequences.
The "fierce and eloquent" (New York Times) memoir from A.M Homes,
award-winning author of May We Be Forgiven and the forthcoming
novel The Unfolding The acclaimed writer A. M. Homes was given up
for adoption before she was born. Her biological mother was a
twenty-two-year-old single woman who was having an affair with a
much older married man with a family of his own. The Mistress's
Daughter is the ruthlessly honest account of what happened when,
thirty years later, her birth parents came looking for her. Homes
relates how they initially made contact and what happened
afterwards, and digs through the family history of both sets of her
parents in a twenty-first-century electronic search for self.
Daring, heartbreaking, and startlingly funny, Homes's memoir is a
brave and profoundly moving consideration of identity and family.
"A compelling, devastating, and furiously good book written with an
honesty few of us would risk." -Zadie Smith "I fell in love with it
from the first page and read compulsively to the end." -Amy Tan
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