Object Lessons - Softcover

Quindlen, Anna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099538156 ISBN 13: 9780099538158

Publisher: Windmill Books, 2012

Synopsis

It is the 1960s, in suburban New York City, and twelve-year-old Maggie Scanlan begins to sense that despite the calm surface of her peaceful life, everything is going strangely wrong.

When her all-powerful grandfather is struck down by a stroke, the reverberations affect Maggie's entire family. Her normally dispassionate father breaks down, her mother becomes distant and unavailable, and matters only get worse when her cousin and her best friend start doing things to each other that leave Maggie confused about sex and terrified of sin.

With all of this upheaval, how can she be sure that what she wants is even worth having?

About this title

Review:

"An intelligent, highly entertaining novel laced with acute perceptions about the nature of day-to-day family life" (Anne Tyler New York Times Book Review)

"The characters are quirky and vividly drawn ... The writing is lovely, and shows humour and quiet insight ... Quindlen is an intellignet and imaginative writer" (Boston Globe)

"Elaborate and playful... Honest and deeply felt... Here is the Quindlen wit, the sharp eye for details of class and manners ... the ardent reading of domestic lives." (New York Times)

"Anna Quindlen's first novel is about an experience that is the same for everyone and different for us all: the time when we suddenly see our family with an outsider's eye and begin the separation that marks our growing up." (Washington Post)

"Quindlen is at her best writing about the dislocations of growing up, the blows a child does not see coming" (Time)

Book Description:

From the author of Every Last One, another unmissable novel about family life

About this edition

• Publisher: Windmill Books
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0099538156
• ISBN 13: 9780099538158
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288