Thursday, August 26, 2010

Give Me Freedom!

Give Me Freedom!: From Shelf Renewal: "Or, if you’ve got a monster waiting list due to Jonathan Franzen’s amazing press coverage (Time Magazine, The New York Times, President Obama), try these backlist blends of satire and schadenfreude.
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

Midwestern farmer’s daughter Tassie Keltjin supplements her scholarship to the state’s big U with a job as part-time nanny for an uber-liberal white couple who have just adopted an African American baby.


The Human Stain by Philip Roth

The last thing college professor Coleman Silk would ever intentionally do is initiate a debate about racism and political correctness. An offhanded campus comment, however, draws attention to Coleman’s own racially complex background and his current romance with a socio-economically disadvantaged younger woman.


This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

Estranged from his pregnant wife, Judd Foxman joins his three siblings in a contentious return home to sit shiva for their father. The siblings slip into their childhood roles, letting old anxieties and alliances continue to affect their relationships.


Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

A halfway-house in the Boston Suburbs and a tony tennis academy serve as backdrops for Wallace’s sprawling satire of nearly ever dysfunction under the sun.


Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

Wolfe skewers the status-conscious 1980s in the tale of a bond salesman who, literally, finds himself on the wrong side of the tracks. After getting in a car accident on the way home from the airport with his mistress, Sherman McCoy becomes a symbol of white privilege and takes the heat for New York City’s smoldering racial tensions and the divide between the haves and have-nots."

No comments:

Post a Comment