This Book Will Save Your Life

Product Information

This book left me cold. Not indifferent-this-is-failing-to-evoke-a-reaction cold. The good kind of cold. The this-feels-eerily-close-to-reality cold. They're not always helpful. This is a weird idea, but I think we should ask the guy at the house up the hill." Richard ends up making friends with a donut maker, a supposedly ‘homeless’ man who lives next door, a mother of a handful of kids to a drongo of a father who decides to leave him, a talking car, Bob Dylan, a dog called Malibu and so, so, so much more. The girl tries to guide the horse up the door and out of the hole. He won't go. She runs up and down the wooden door trying to show him that the ramp is safe. The horse is suspicious—he wants to come out, he starts to come out, but something keeps him in the hole. And he's catching on to the fact that he's trapped and is looking at the girl and at Richard, wanting someone to explain it in horse terms. By the end, Richard is very different from the anal retentive who worried that if he admitted himself to hospital he would miss his personal training appointment. And he is all the better for it. The experience saves his life. Whether it will save yours is debatable, but it shifts your perspective on life and in the most darkly entertaining way.

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. bundan sonra anca filmlerde olabilecek saçmalıklar silsilesi devam ediyor. richard panik atak geçiriyor, yarık büyüyor, içine at düşüyor, hollywood yıldızı komşu helikopterle kurtarıyor, manavda ağlayan bir kadınla kanka oluyor, kadının kocasıyla yumruklaşıyor, kaçırılan bir kızı kurtarıyor, evden taşınması gerekiyor, arabasını donut’çuya ödünç veriyor, yeni taşındığı evde meğer abd’nin en ünlü senaristiyle komşu oluyor vs. A commanding narrative…by turns witty and unnerving, and at times almost unbearable in its emotional intensity.”— Wall Street Journal Richard isn't ready either; he's nervous, excited, almost overwhelmed, it's too much stimulation—maybe the vet should give him a little shot as well.

READERS GUIDE

With dark humor and sharp dialogue, Homes plumbs the depths of everyday American anxieties through stories about unexpected situations.”— Time My assistant is working on the harness. It's not an easy item. But don't worry, my team is on it, and they work magic." 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? I liked it and it kept my interest for a good while, but only because I could almost never imagine what was coming next, certainly not because what came next was in any way organic or a necessary outcome of anything previous. The book seemed to become more frenetic and random as it neared the end, and I got a little impatient with it--I had realized by then that nothing was going to be wrapped up, we'd just keep lurching from event to event--by the time we came to the SOS from the car trunk, I was pretty much done.

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 compelling, devastating, and furiously good book written with an honesty few of us would risk.”–Zadie Smith Richard and Cynthia are both trying to reclaim their lives. In what ways do they help each other? How are their efforts similar? Who is more successful?

Success!

Yet, through all this you see him struggle with himself. His fear of dying, of not being a better son, brother, husband, father. This is what makes me just want to be in his presence, like maybe I’d catch some of what he is. I’d be tempted to use the word ‘aura’ but it might just be the Californian influence within the book, This is what made me hate to see the book end. Okay, do you ever get that feeling? That sense of… oh, I can’t find the right words, I can only describe it as a warm fuzzy. It’s this sense of childish hope, that people ARE good---and not good like someone letting you cut in line at the grocery store because you have 2 items to their 20 or someone following the correct etiquette of ‘merging into traffic’, but have you experienced true goodness? I have. I know I have. I’ve remembered coming home and being so excited to retell the story of something that renewed my faith in mankind. I remember grinning, not just smiling or smirking but full on ear-to-ear, pearly whites, make your face hurt, grinning. The larger problem, though, is the dullness of Homes's satiric edge. She portrays Los Angeles as a city collapsing -- morally and physically -- but it's Apocalypse Lite. Anyone who wants to make fun of bizarre diets, ludicrous luxuries, New Age fads and crippling exercise regimes has to stay ahead of the ever-escalating real-world grotesqueries of modern life. If you're as isolated and disconnected as Richard, you'll find the details here surprising and hilarious, but otherwise, it's yesterday's news. An absolute masterpiece . . . Homes writes ecstatically, and like no one else.”– The Philadelphia Inquirer