Cost - Softcover

Robinson, Roxana

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312428464 ISBN 13: 9780312428464

Publisher: Picador, 2009

Synopsis

Julia Lambert, an artist, is spending the summer in her old Maine farmhouse. During a visit from her elderly parents, she hopes to mend complicated relationships with her domineering father, a retired neurosurgeon, and her gentle mother, who is descending into the fog of Alzheimer's. But a shattering revelation intrudes: Julia's son, Jack, has spiraled into heroin addiction. In her attempts to save him, Julia marshals help from her loosely knit clan, but Jack's addiction courses through the family with a devastating energy, sweeping them all into a world of confusion, fear, and obsession. In Cost, Roxana Robinson applies her "trademark gifts as an intelligent, sensitive analyst of family life" and creates a "warmly human and deeply satisfying book, marking a new level of ambition and achievement for this talented author" (Chicago Tribune).

About this title

Product Description:

Unusual book

Review:

"Artfully portrays a family transformed by the far-reaching consequences of a son's heroin addiction." --Vanity Fair

"Cost applies Roxana Robinson's trademark gifts as an intelligent, sensitive analyst of family life. . . . A warmly human and deeply satisfying book, marking a new level of ambition and achievement for this talented author." --Chicago Tribune

"Scarily good . . . with such fierce moments of anxiety and grief, this is, frankly, a challenging novel to read, but Robinson's insight makes it impossible to break away." --The Washington Post

"Pitch-perfect . . . Cost is unusual for being as plot-driven as it is character-driven, and the assured manner in which Robinson builds toward the inevitable train wreck is matched by her acuity in bringing us inside the characters' minds." --The New York Times Book Review

"Cost is unsparing but not bleak. It is both lyrical and unsentimental, richly honest and humane--summer reading of uncommon stature." --The Wall Street Journal

"Gripping . . . Robinson paints a chilling portrait of addiction." --People

"An emotionally incisive story about change--the permeable bonds between family members and an individual's fluctuating sense of self." --Time Out (New York)

"[A] piercing novel . . . Robinson has always been a sensitive and revelatory writer, but she attains new degrees of intensity here. . . . Her illuminations of the churning inner lives of her smart and deep-feeling characters depict good people facing brutal forces beyond the reach of reason and love." --Booklist

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0312428464
• ISBN 13: 9780312428464
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448