Danielle, Marina, and Julius have wanted to matter ever since they graduated from Brown University. But all three friends are 30 now, and all they have to show for their eight years in New York is one demeaning TV production job, one freelance gig with The Village Voice's art pages, and one contract for a nonfiction book that sometimes doesn't seem worth writing anymore. Marina's father embodies the life they once dreamed of. A crusading journalist since the 1960s, Murray Thwaite has earned his groupies and his luxurious Central Park West apartment. But he has also earned a comedown, and when a chubby, autodidactic nephew from the sticks arrives looking for a place to stay and a star to follow, Thwaite and his self-absorbed offspring are rocked by the unexpected intrusion of the young man's idealism.
'œYes, a great deal is going on' in Claire Messud's 'œextraordinary' new novel, said Merle Rubin in The Wall Street Journal. The characters are all, or mostly, privileged New Yorkers living in that bygone era of pre-9/11 2001. But Messud has written a modern comedy of manners that has more than surface satire in mind. She makes her characters' fates seem 'œsuspensefully uncertain and, by the end, morally illuminating and surprising.' There are times, to be sure, when a reader 'œwishes that Messud would go deeper' with some of the overgrown adolescents in her delightful menagerie, said Katie Roiphe in Slate.com. But to plumb the depths of every one of her characters, Messud would have had to sacrifice some of the 'œspeed and lightness' that make The Emperor's Children one of the rare books that can truly be called 'œa literary page-turner.'
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”