Items related to The Testing of Luther Albright

The Testing of Luther Albright - Softcover

 
9780060751425: The Testing of Luther Albright
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
"MacKenzie Bezos has produced a rarity: a sophisticated novel that breaks and swells the heart. A sure-footed excavation into the nuances of everyday terror--the kind that turns devotion into despair, trust into treachery, love into loss. Its pull is irresistible."
-- Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of Song of Solomon

"Quietly absorbing . . . the slow pileup of events takes on unxpected, if mild urgency . . . wholly original and convincing."
-- New York Times Book Review

Luther Albright is a builder of dams, a man whose greatest pride (besides his family) is running his hands over the true planes of the house he built himself and knowing that he's constructed something that will shield and shelter them from harm.

A relatively minor incident -- an earthquake that shakes his Sacramento home -- reveals fault lines and cracks in the facade of his family. His teenage son's behavior becomes increasingly bizarre and threatening, his devoted wife more distant, and then a dam of Luther's design comes under investigation for structural flaws exposed by the tremors. In the midst of his heartbreaking family dissolution, Luther must battle against the need to withhold his emotions and push his family even farther away.

Nightmarish meanings begin to shout at Luther from the most innocent of places as debut novelist MacKenzie Bezos tightens her net of psychological suspense around the reader with bravura skill. In the spirit of Rosellen Brown and Alice McDermott, this is a harrowing portrait of an ordinary man who finds himself tested and strives not to be found wanting.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:
"[An] impressive, quietly powerful debut... Bezos captures the extraordinary in the ordinary, revealing a startling talent for naturalism."--Publishers Weekly

"An affecting portrait of a family whose admirable head has one fatal flaw...A self-assured, distinguished debut."--Kirkus Reviews

"A nuanced, emotionally charged first novel."--Booklist

"Bezos refreshingly resists tying the story up neatly at the end. Quietly heartbreaking...just as real life often is."--BookPage

"A memorable debut."--The Sunday Oregonian

"Outstanding. . . . Bezos lays bare the inner life of the repressed American Everyman in [an] exquisite, excruciating portrait."--Entertainment Weekly

"In her chilling first novel Bezos puts her hero under the microscope. . . . A masterful debut."--Jane Hamilton, the prise-winning author of The Book of Ruth and Disobedience

"Bezos has produced a rarity: a sophisticated novel that breaks and swells the heart....sure-footed...compelling....irresistible."--Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of Song of Solomon Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of Song of Solomon Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of Song of Sol
From the Author:
Why did you choose to write your novel from a man’s point of view, and a middle-aged man at that? Why not something closer to your own experience? Even Liz or Elliot’s voices would probably have been less alien to you.
‘It’s funny. I started with the same assumption. I planned on writing the book from multiple viewpoints – chapters alternating in the voices of four different characters – and I started with a teenage daughter. I moved onto the son and the wife next, and tackled Luther last, because I figured his voice would be the most difficult for me. As it turned out, his was instantly the easiest and most interesting for me to work on, and the teenage daughter turned out to be so incredibly dull and hard to write I cut her character altogether. I used to puzzle over this, but now I think I understand it. I attribute it to a couple factors. I think his differences actually gave me a running start at characterization, in the same way that people often find it easier to describe people they just met at a cocktail party than to describe their own spouses. And I also think that his particular problems made him the most natural mouthpiece for a story of this kind of loss and regret.
But that isn’t to say that it was easy for me once I figured out his voice was the way to go. The process was riddled with technical problems and hobbling episodes of self-doubt that stemmed from Luther’s repression. I kept asking myself why a guy like him would tell his own story. If he knew how revealing, how full of error and cause for regret that year of his life would be, why would he ever narrate it? The person he was the year it all happened would certainly never share these stories – he wouldn’t even want to reflect on them in the privacy of his own lonely mind. And even if I just took it on faith that something towards the end of the story would give him the motivation to lay his story bare, I couldn’t imagine the tone with which he’d look back on these events because I didn’t know how the story ended. Would he feel critical of himself? Regretful? Angry? Self-justifying? So I wrote most of the book in the present tense as a way of dodging the question of narrative tone. About three quarters of the way through my first draft, I actually stopped and spent four months trying to rewrite the first half in the third person, chucking the idea of the confessional novel altogether. There was just a huge amount of agonising trial and error involved.
What I learned from this process is that for me it’s really paralysing and ultimately useless to try to economise my narrative effort during a first draft. The only way for me to learn that a certain approach wouldn’t work was to try it. Choosing quickly and writing something that I could then evaluate as either bad or good was always the quickest way to narrative success. For the rest of that year, I tried to force a degree of discipline and humour into the dreary business of making these arbitrary first draft choices by leaving them up to my labrador. I would lay two dog biscuits on the floor and tell myself that if she ate the biscuit on the left first, I’d try writing a scene where Luther and his father are trapped in the crawl space of a house in Short Hills, New Jersey, and if she ate the biscuit on the right, I’d try writing a scene where Luther and his mother make devilled eggs by candlelight in their kitchen in Trenton. This worked pretty well until one dispiriting week when she settled in to always choosing the left biscuit. But by then, I didn’t really need the trick anymore. I just chose at random, and then followed the path of my better scenes to the right story and the right ending. When I finally knew where Luther ended up emotionally and how the events had changed him, I understood why he felt moved to reflect on that year and tell his story, and the question of narrative tone became fairly easy. Then I moved on to the treat of revision. Whenever I meet someone at a reading or a dinner party who is slogging through the first draft of their first novel, I’m quick to offer the prediction that it will become a lot more fun. The final draft work was often difficult, and it required much longer days, but they were jam-packed with fun problems and huge rewards. It was really a pleasure. When the whole story is there, every hour of effort is just a much longer lever.’

What was the inspiration for this book?
‘I’ve always had a deep, nerdy preoccupation with the cumulative effect of tiny misunderstandings in intimate relationships. At dinner parties, in books and movies, in overheard conversations, it’s always the sideline drama of small, well-intentioned acts of evasion or omission that draws my attention and quickens my pulse. Just to give you an idea of the scope of my fixation, for me, one of the most memorable scenes in Star Wars is the one where Luke’s uncle and aunt argue over their expectations for him after he leaves the kitchen.
Luther’s story evolved from this preoccupation, albeit unconsciously. I didn’t set out to write a book about emotional secrecy anymore than I enter movie theaters intending to be transfixed and distracted by purely expository background tensions. But when I sat down to start a novel, every time I created a character that was secretive in this way, I found myself more interested, and the writing got better. Then the characters who loved them tried to draw some degree of emotional honesty from them in increasingly aggressive ways. The tension mounted. At first it surprised me, but now it seems natural. After a straightforward plea, is there any other healthy reaction to distance in an intimate relationship? The only alternative is to accept estrangement, which in some way is what Liz ultimately seems to do. Even the smallest bits of evasion or omission in an intimate relationship build a little bit of distance, erode trust. And in the end, people make decisions based on their own perceptions, which are hard to predict and impossible to control. To me, it’s a fascinating problem. There’s so much tragic potential in it.’

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherHarper Perennial
  • Publication date2006
  • ISBN 10 0060751428
  • ISBN 13 9780060751425
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages272
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780060751418: The Testing Of Luther Albright

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780060751418
Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2005
Hardcover

  • 9780007196722: THE TESTING OF LUTHER ALBRIGHT

    Harper..., 2006
    Softcover

  • 9780007192878: The Testing of Luther Albright

    Fourth..., 2005
    Hardcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Seller Image

Bezos, MacKenzie
Published by Harper Perennial (2006)
ISBN 10: 0060751428 ISBN 13: 9780060751425
New Soft Cover Quantity: 10
Seller:
booksXpress
(Bayonne, NJ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780060751425

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 11.49
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Bezos, MacKenzie
Published by Harper Perennial (2006)
ISBN 10: 0060751428 ISBN 13: 9780060751425
New Softcover Quantity: 5
Seller:
GreatBookPrices
(Columbia, MD, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 4014828-n

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 11.46
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 2.09
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

MacKenzie Bezos
Published by Harper Collins Publishers (2006)
ISBN 10: 0060751428 ISBN 13: 9780060751425
New Softcover Quantity: > 20
Seller:
INDOO
(Avenel, NJ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Brand New. Seller Inventory # 0060751428

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 10.41
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 3.16
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Bezos, MacKenzie
Published by Harper Perennial (2006)
ISBN 10: 0060751428 ISBN 13: 9780060751425
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Books Unplugged
(Amherst, NY, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Buy with confidence! Book is in new, never-used condition. Seller Inventory # bk0060751428xvz189zvxnew

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 13.61
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Bezos, MacKenzie
Published by Harper Perennial (2006)
ISBN 10: 0060751428 ISBN 13: 9780060751425
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Book Deals
(Tucson, AZ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published. Seller Inventory # 353-0060751428-new

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 13.61
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Bezos, MacKenzie
Published by Harper Perennial 7/25/2006 (2006)
ISBN 10: 0060751428 ISBN 13: 9780060751425
New Paperback or Softback Quantity: 5
Seller:
BargainBookStores
(Grand Rapids, MI, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback or Softback. Condition: New. The Testing of Luther Albright 0.53. Book. Seller Inventory # BBS-9780060751425

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 15.26
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Bezos, MacKenzie
Published by Harper Perennial (2006)
ISBN 10: 0060751428 ISBN 13: 9780060751425
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
GridFreed
(North Las Vegas, NV, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. In shrink wrap. Seller Inventory # 10-04102

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 11.39
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 4.32
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

MacKenzie Bezos
ISBN 10: 0060751428 ISBN 13: 9780060751425
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
Grand Eagle Retail
(Wilmington, DE, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. "A sophisticated novel that breaks and swells the heart. A sure-footed excavation into the nuances of everyday terror--the kind that turns devotion into despair, trust into treachery, love into loss. Its pull is irresistible." -- Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of Song of Solomon"Quietly absorbing . . . the slow pileup of events takes on unexpected, if mild urgency . . . wholly original and convincing." -- New York Times Book ReviewLuther Albright is a builder of dams, a man whose greatest pride (besides his family) is running his hands over the true planes of the house he built himself and knowing that he's constructed something that will shield and shelter them from harm.A relatively minor incident -- an earthquake that shakes his Sacramento home--reveals fault lines and cracks in the facade of his family. His teenage son's behavior becomes increasingly bizarre and threatening, his devoted wife more distant, and then a dam of Luther's design comes under investigation for structural flaws exposed by the tremors. In the midst of his heartbreaking family dissolution, Luther must battle against the need to withhold his emotions and push his family even farther away.Nightmarish meanings begin to shout at Luther from the most innocent of places as debut novelist MacKenzie Bezos tightens her net of psychological suspense around the reader with bravura skill. In the spirit of Rosellen Brown and Alice McDermott, this is a harrowing portrait of an ordinary man who finds himself tested and strives not to be found wanting. When an earthquake shakes Luther Albright's Sacramento home, it reveals fault lines and cracks not only in the house he personally designed but in the facade of his family as well. "A sophisticated novel that breaks and swells the heart."--Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780060751425

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 15.91
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Bezos, MacKenzie
Published by HarperCollins (2006)
ISBN 10: 0060751428 ISBN 13: 9780060751425
New PAP Quantity: > 20
Print on Demand
Seller:
PBShop.store US
(Wood Dale, IL, U.S.A.)

Book Description PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. THIS BOOK IS PRINTED ON DEMAND. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # L0-9780060751425

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 16.49
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Bezos, Mackenzie
Published by Perennial (2006)
ISBN 10: 0060751428 ISBN 13: 9780060751425
New Softcover Quantity: > 20
Seller:
Lucky's Textbooks
(Dallas, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # ABLING22Oct2018170000593

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
£ 13.65
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: £ 3.16
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

There are more copies of this book

View all search results for this book