This Book Will Save Your Life

Product Information

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact. He gives away new cars, pays for his maid's hip replacement, sends the weary housewife to a spa. "This is the person he wants to be," Homes writes. "He wants to be able to do this for others, strangers, it doesn't matter who, and he wants to be able to do it for himself." His Good Samaritan impulse also inspires a series of impromptu rescue operations: A horse is trapped in a sinkhole, a hostage is trapped in a trunk, a woman is trapped in a bad marriage. These episodes are mildly amusing (for 15 minutes, he's a national celebrity, a punch line on Letterman), but because Richard is so imperturbable and his success so firmly guaranteed, the scenes never develop any real suspense. With her signature humor and compassion, A.M. Homes exposes the heart of an uneasy America in her new collection – exploring 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.” — Chicago Review of Books Middle-aged Richard Novak experiences diffuse intense pain and ends up in an Emergency Department, he also has a massive sinkhole growing next to his well-to-do home in LA. Wow. Wow. wow. This book sneaks up on you - it starts out really strong, and then only gets better.

Richard’s son, Ben, has been deeply affected by his father’s absence in his life. Discuss the ways in which their relationship evolves during Ben’s time in Malibu. OK, honey, I'm going to talk you through it." The movie star has the stunt coordinator from Paramount with him in the chopper. 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. A big American story with big American themes, the saga of the triumph of a new kind of self-invented nuclear family over cynicism, apathy, loneliness, greed, and technological tyranny…this novel has a strong moral core, neither didactic nor judgmental, that holds out the possibility of redemption through connection.”–Kate Christensen, ElleThis is the story of Richard, the flawed but loveable protagonist. It is equally the story of the myriad of characters that are similarly finding their way and shaping each other’s lives in the process – memorably, Anhil, the jewish doughnut maker, Cynthia the under appreciated house wife, Nic, the somewhat feral novelist, and Richard’s coming of age son Ben. We are all seeking connections. We all yearn. And in this book the world is the Los Angeles landscape of plastic dreamy heartbreak. Are you a good parent? A good Samaritan? Are you even aware of who you are? And who are these characters that weave in and out of your life leaving merely a smudge of an impression?

evet richard novak yahudi ebeveyniyle eh denecek çocukluk geçirmiş, her aile gibi abisiyle sıkıntıları olmuş, severek evlendiği karısından oğlu olmuş, boşanmış, o çocukla ne yapacağını bilemediğinden hiç ilgilenmemiş.This sunny and disarming story is probably the last thing you would expect from Homes, whose most celebrated work, The End of Alice, is a study of paedophilia across two generations. But she is as fearless and inquisitive about the nature of kindness as she was about child abuse; if anything, this book is braver. Artists and philosophers are forever fretting over the "problem of evil". There's relatively little written about the much more interesting problem of good. Generosity can be powerfully addictive. The real-estate millionaire Zell Kravinsky, for instance, gave away his fortune and then - to the consternation of his family - tried to give away one of his kidneys. What makes us want to help strangers at our own cost and against our own interest? It isn't thanks: do-gooder is a term of abuse. Small acts of inexplicable generosity can be as alarming as they are charming. A friend of mine once found an old man bewildered and freezing in Sefton Park, spent the evening trying to find his house for him and was later arrested for attempted abduction and mugging. Richard Novak is called a freak and attention-seeker, but still keeps on. Homes is brilliant on what the attraction is. She captures the enchantment of generosity - that sense of adventure you get when you step out of your own circle of need into someone else's, and the weird feeling of invulnerability it gives you (at one point Richard ends up in a high-speed car chase with some kidnappers). Her work has been translated into eighteen languages and appears frequently in Art Forum, Harpers, Granta, McSweeney's, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Zoetrope. She is a Contributing Editor to Vanity Fair, Bomb and Blind Spot. There’s this great scene towards the end. Richard takes his 17 yr. old estranged son to DisneyLand. You can see that Ben is fighting something, trying to recapture some sense of his lost childhood. He’s fighting with his father, yelling at him while riding the teacups or waiting for Space Mountain and Richard is taking it, feeling like he deserves it. Ben’s trying to work out all these emotions, worried about an expiration date or something---afraid to see this day end. And there’s this scene: Through the course of the novel Richard makes several new male friends, including Anhil and Nic. How do men make friendships as adults and is that an easy or a hard thing for them to do?