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| Author: Michael Tolkin |
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| Format: | Paperback |
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Product Summary
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN-10: 0802138829
ISBN-13: 9780802138828
Buy.com Sku: 30938513
Publish Date: 4/16/2007
Pages:
256
Age Range:
NA
See more in Literary
| Michael TolkinUs acclaimed second novel is an arresting examination of public and private grief in the wake of unspeakable disaster, a slow-burning tour de force of psychological fiction. Frank Gale writes a letter to his wife confessing an affair, but her plane crashes, and his life changes in the course of seconds. |
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From the Publisher:
A black comedy set in modern-day L.A. traces the disastrous attempts of an unfaithful husband to make a new start with his family. By the author of The Player. Reprint. |
Annotation:
Frank Gale is a despicable human being, an embodiment of everything callow and shallow and false. AMONG THE DEAD, Michael Tolkin's scabrous and wicked satire, opens with Gale drafting and redrafting a letter to his wife admitting to his long-term infidelity. The affair now over, Gale is planning on mending the fences with his wife and 3-year-old daughter on a vacation in Mexico. Unfortunately, his wife discovers the note prematurely and, to avoid an uncomfortable plane ride, Gale arranges to follow her on the next flight out. When his wife's plane crashes, killing all on board, it turns out he has also saved his own life. At first Gale is distraught: will he be blamed for the crime? But then he begins to bask in the possibilities of the situation: he can play his grieving husband card to the fullest, winning pity, admiration, and perhaps women, not to mention the financial restitution from the airline. Everything seems to be going according to his twisted plan when a single item is rescued from the crash site: Gale's nasty note, and suddenly his hypocrisies are exposed for the whole world to see. Michael Tolkin, author of THE PLAYER, has written a vicious dark comedy whose semi-sociopathic "hero" is both loathsome and fascinating.
Frank Gale is a despicable human being, an embodiment of everything callow and shallow and false. AMONG THE DEAD, Michael Tolkin's scabrous and wicked satire, opens with Gale drafting and redrafting a letter to his wife admitting to his long-term infidelity. The affair now over, Gale is planning on mending the fences with his wife and 3-year-old daughter on a vacation in Mexico. Unfortunately, his wife discovers the note prematurely and, to avoid an uncomfortable plane ride, Gale arranges to follow her on the next flight out. When his wife's plane crashes, killing all on board, it turns out he has also saved his own life. At first Gale is distraught: will he be blamed for the crime? But then he begins to bask in the possibilities of the situation: he can play his grieving husband card to the fullest, winning pity, admiration, and perhaps women, not to mention the financial restitution from the airline. Everything seems to be going according to his twisted plan when a single item is rescued from the crash site: Gale's nasty note, and suddenly his hypocrisies are exposed for the whole world to see. Michael Tolkin, author of THE PLAYER, has written a vicious dark comedy whose semi-sociopathic "hero" is both loathsome and fascinating.
New York Times Book Review
"...Has all the merits of film--the accessiblity, the excitement of the plot, the calcuated ability to control, manipulate and surprise...." - Fay Weldon 4/25/93 "Frank Gale, must surely rank as one of the most repellent characters to come along in recent literature, right up there alongside Patrick Bateman, the deranged narrator of Bret Easton Ellis's AMERICAN PSYCHO." - Michiko Kakutani 04/13/1993
"...Has all the merits of film--the accessiblity, the excitement of the plot, the calcuated ability to control, manipulate and surprise...." - Fay Weldon 4/25/93 "Frank Gale, must surely rank as one of the most repellent characters to come along in recent literature, right up there alongside Patrick Bateman, the deranged narrator of Bret Easton Ellis's AMERICAN PSYCHO." - Michiko Kakutani 04/13/1993
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