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'A book that embodies what's best in us.' - Stephen King Washington Post Best Book of the Year,2017 San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year, 2017 E ntertainment Weekly Best Book of the Year,2017 The Red Lobster chain restaurant perched in the far corner of a run-down American mall hasn't been making its numbers and has pulled the plug. But manager Manny DeLeon still needs to navigate a tricky last shift with a near-mutinous staff and the final onslaught of hungry retirees, lunatics, and office parties. All the while, Manny wondering how to handle the waitress he's still in love with, what to do about his pregnant girlfriend, and how to find the Christmas present that will make everything better. Stewart O'Nan has been called 'the bard of the working class', and Last Night at the Lobster is a American cult classic and a masterpiece of precision and empathy.
A ghost story that begins in everyday tragedy, from a distinctly American master of both forms: a "scary, sad, funny . . . mesmerizing read" (Stephen King) At Midnight on Halloween in a cloistered New England suburb, a car carrying five teenagers leaves a winding road and slams into a tree, killing three of them. One escapes unharmed, another suffers severe brain damage. A year later, summoned by the memories of those closest to them, the three that died come back on a last chilling mission among the living. A strange and unsettling ghost story, The Night Country creeps through the leaf-strewn streets and quiet cul-de-sacs of one bedroom community, reaching into the desperately connected yet...
A year after the death of her husband, Emily Maxwell gathers her family at Lake Chautauqua for what will be a last holiday at their summer cottage. Joining her is her sister-in-law Arlene, silently mourning both the loss of the lake house and a bygone love affair. Emily's firebrand daughter Meg, a recovering alcoholic recently separated from her husband, brings her children from Detroit. Emily's son Ken, who has quit his job and mortgaged his future to pursue his art, comes accompanied by his children and his wife, who is secretly heartened to be visiting the house for the last time. Memories of past summers resurface, old rivalries flare up and love is rekindled and born anew, resulting in a timeless novel that 'succeeds beautifully [and] showcases some of the finest character studies a contemporary reader could ask for' ( Boston Globe).
When I was in eighth grade my sister helped kill another girl. For the Oliviera family - mum Carol, daughters Angel and Marie - autumn 2009 in the once-prosperous beach town of Ashaway, Rhode Island is the worst of times. Money is tight, Carol can't stay away from unsuitable men, Angel's world is shattered when she learns her long-time boyfriend Myles has been cheating on her with classmate Birdy, and Marie is left to fend for herself. As Angel and Birdy, both consumed by the intensity of their feelings for Myles, careen towards a collision both tragic and inevitable, the loyalties of Carol and Marie will be tested in ways they could never have foreseen. Stewart O'Nan's expert hand has crafted a crushing and propulsive novel about sisters, mothers and daughters, and the desperate ecstasies of love and the terrible things we do for it. Both swoony and haunting, Ocean State is a masterful work by one of the great storytellers of everyday American life.
This first book-length study of Stewart O'Nan's work offers a comprehensive introduction to his writings and carefully examines recurring thematic concerns and stylistic characteristics of his novels. The author of eighteen novels, several works of nonfiction, and two short-story collections, O'Nan received the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society's Gold Medal for best novel for Snow Angels and the Drew Heinz Prize for In the Walled City. In 1996 Granta magazine named him one of the Twenty Best Young American Novelists. In Understanding Stewart O'Nan, Heike Paul appraises O'Nan's oeuvre to date, including his popular multigenerational trilogy of novels—Wish You Were Here; Emily, Alone; and Henr...
What to read next is every book lover's greatest dilemma. Nancy Pearl comes to the rescue with this wide-ranging and fun guide to the best reading new and old. Pearl, who inspired legions of litterateurs with "What If All (name the city) Read the Same Book," has devised reading lists that cater to every mood, occasion, and personality. These annotated lists cover such topics as mother-daughter relationships, science for nonscientists, mysteries of all stripes, African-American fiction from a female point of view, must-reads for kids, books on bicycling, "chick-lit," and many more. Pearl's enthusiasm and taste shine throughout.
Soldier, son, lover, husband, breadwinner, churchgoer, Henry Maxwell has spent his whole life trying to live with honour. A native Pittsburgher and engineer, he's always believed in logic, sacrifice and hard work. Now, seventy-five and retired, he feels the world has passed him by. It's 1998, the American century is ending, and nothing is simple any more. His children are distant, their unhappiness a mystery. Only his wife, Emily, and dog, Rufus, stand by him. Once so confident, as Henry's strength and memory desert him, he weighs his dreams against his regrets and is left with questions he can't answer: Is he a good man? Has he done right by the people he loves? And with time running out, what, realistically, can he hope for? Henry, Himself is a wry, warmhearted portrait of an American original - a man who believes he's reached a dead end only to discover life is full of surprises.
In 1937, F. Scott Fitzgerald was a troubled, uncertain man whose literary success was long behind him. In poor health, with his wife consigned to a mental asylum and his finances in ruin, he struggled to make a new start as a screenwriter in Hollywood. With flashbacks to key moments from Fitzgerald's past, the story follows him as he arrives on the MGM lot, falls in love with brassy gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, begins work on The Last Tycoon, and tries to maintain a semblance of family life with the absent Zelda and their daughter, Scottie. Written with striking grace and subtlety, this wise and intimate portrait of a man trying his best to hold together a world that's flying apart, if not gone already, is an American masterpiece.
A deadly epidemic threatens the lives and sanity of a Civil War veteran and his family in this “new masterpiece of American literature” (Dennis Lehane). Set in Friendship, Wisconsin, just after the Civil War, A Prayer for the Dying tells of a horrible epidemic that is suddenly and gruesomely killing the town’s residents and setting off a terrifying paranoia. Jacob Hansen, Friendship’s sheriff, undertaker, and pastor, is soon overwhelmed by the fear and anguish around him, and his sanity begins to fray. Dark, poetic, and chilling, Stewart O’Nan’s A Prayer for the Dying examines the effect of madness and violence on the morality of a once-decent man. Praise for A Prayer for the Dying New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year “A Prayer for the Dying reads like the amazing, unrelenting love child of Shirley Jackson and Cormac McCarthy. It’s twisted proof that God will do worse to test a faithful man than the devil would ever do to punish a sinner.”―Chuck Palahniuk “O’Nan again proves himself a writer of dazzling virtuosity and imagination. . . . A mesmerizing story and a brilliant tour de force.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
When a popular high-school student goes missing from her small Midwestern community, her loving parents, introverted sister, friends, and boyfriend devote themselves to finding her, an effort that gives way to pleading television appearances, private investigations, and intimate struggles to cling to hope. 60,000 first printing.