Singer - Hardcover

Sher, Ira

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151014132 ISBN 13: 9780151014132

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 2009

Synopsis

Against the backdrop of the Singer Sewing Company, a novel of phobias, obsessions, a string of motel fires, and a troubled friendship In the early 1980s,Milton Menger, a wealthy art dealer living in New Jersey, is called by an estranged friend, Charles Trembleman, with whom he's had no contact in years. Charley is a traveling salesman for the Singer Sewing Company and his hands have just been badly burned in a motel fire near Memphis.He needs a driver so he can continue traveling and selling.Milty rises to the occasion.Together they embark on a journey across the South, visiting showrooms and staying in locally owned motels. Is it a coincidence that these motels keep going up in flames?
With a DeLillo-like nostalgia for Americana, combined with the dark humor of a Coen brothers film, Ira Sher's storytelling draws the reader in like a moth to the flame.

About this title

About the Author

IRA SHER is the author of Gentlemen of Space:A Novel. His short fiction has been published in journals including the Chicago Review and the Gettysburg Review and broadcast on This American Life. He has been honored as a finalist for the Pushcart Prize and The Best American Mystery Stories.

From the Back Cover

?A mordantly funny journey into the dark heart of America. The two heroes that lead us on this odyssey travel side-by-side, eying each other, trying to get back to a moment when they could remember what it was to be human. Ira Sher is a superb writer, and Singer is smart, heartfelt, and wholly original.. ?Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

"An extraordinary and uncanny novel, the kind of gothic tale that lingers long after you've put the book down. Sher is a writer of alchemical abilities."--Kelly Link, author of Pretty Monsters

"Imagine Arthur Miller, Paul Auster, Patricia Highsmith, and Herman Melville taking a road trip together through the south. If those luminaries collaboratively composed a book about friendship and loss during stops in aging motels, dive bars, and assorted tourist traps, they might have written a piece of fiction as glorious as Ira Sher's moving new novel. From its first line to its last, Singer thrums with deeply American music--haunting, enchanting, and full of beauty."--Ed Schwarzschild, author of The Family Diamond

"Ira Sher has pulled off a real feat--Singer is both a transfixing rumination on the pitfalls of nostalgia and an elegiac novel about the bygone. It's also a disquietingly funny road trip to the heart of a uniquely American darkness--if DeLillo and Nabokov were to compare field notes from the comfort of a shared cabin at the Bates Motel, the triumphant result might look a lot like Singer."--Christopher Sorrentino, author of Trance

From the Inside Flap

In the early 1980s, Milton Menger, a wealthy art dealer living in New Jersey, is called by an estranged friend, Charles Trembleman, with whom he's had no contact in years. Charley is a traveling salesman for the Singer Sewing Company whose hands have just been badly burned in a motel fire near Memphis. He needs a driver so he can continue traveling and selling, and Milty rises to the occasion. Together they embark on a strange journey across the South, visiting showrooms and staying in locally owned motels. Is it a coincidence that these motels keep going up in flames?
With acute nostalgia for Americana and gothic humor, this novel of phobias, obsessions and a troubled friendship will draw you in like a moth to the flame.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0151014132
• ISBN 13: 9780151014132
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 319