A Great American Novel – from the author of ‘Borrowed Finery’.Otto and Sophie Bentwood live childless in a renovated Brooklyn brownstone. The complete works of Goethe line their bookshelf, their stainless steel kitchen is newly installed, and their Mercedes is parked outside. After Sophie is bitten on the hand while trying to feed a half-starved neighbourhood cat, a series of small and ominous disasters begin to plague their lives, revealing the faultlines and fractures in a marriage – and a society – wrenching itself apart.Includes an introduction by Jonathan Franzen.
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Paula Fox. Desperate Characters
Desperate Characters. Paula Fox
Jonathan Franzen
Table of Contents
No End to It: Rereading Desperate Characters
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
About the Author
Praise
Also by Paula Fox
Copyright
About the Publisher
Отрывок из книги
Introduction by
Title Page
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“It will be hard to see them. Don’t you think it will? Ruth and I’ve never been close friends, but we managed. How do you just stop seeing people? What about the boat?”
“You just stop, that’s how. The winter has been so bad. You can’t imagine the people in the waiting room, a beggar’s army. He told me today that some of his clients were intimidated by the grandeur of our office, that they’ll be more comfortable in his new place. Then he said I’d dry up and disappear if I didn’t, in his words, tune in on the world. God! You should hear him talk, as though he’d been sanctified! One of his clients accused the receptionist of being racist because she asked him to use an ashtray instead of grinding his cigarette butt out in the rug. And today, two men like comic-strip spies helped him pack his goddamn cartons. No, we won’t be seeing them and he can have the boat. I’ve never cared that much about it. Really, it’s just been a burden.”
