Census: A Novel - Hardcover

Jesse Ball

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1783783753 ISBN 13: 9781783783755

Publisher: Granta Books, 2018

Synopsis

'CENSUS is a vital testament to selfless love; a psalm to commonplace miracles; and a mysterious evolving metaphor. So kind, it aches.' David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas

A father and son who are census takers journey across a nameless country from the town of A to the town of Z in the wake of the father's fatal diagnosis. Knowing that his time is menacingly short, the father takes his son, who requires close and constant adult guidance, on this trip of indefinite length. Their feelings for each other are challenged and bolstered as they move in and out of a variety of homes, meeting a variety of different people. Census is about the ways in which people react to the son's condition, to the son as a person in the world. It is about discrimination and acceptance, kindness and art, education and love. It is a profoundly moving novel, glowing with wisdom and grace, roaring with a desire to change the world.

About this title

Review:

'Census is a vital testament to selfless love; a psalm to commonplace miracles, and a mysterious evolving metaphor. So kind, it aches' -- David Mitchell

'Uniquely memorably and utterly profound... Strange and dreamlike' -- Financial Times

'Unexpected, often remarkable... Done with a light touch and a resourceful sense of drama [the characters are] all vividly rendered often with wonderfully macabre or bizarre stories in their background, and advance a sustained philosophical inquiry into the nature and limits of human empathy... A detailed and moving portrait of a kind of radical innocence, one that brings both the cruelty and the kindness in the world around into sharp focus' -- Guardian

'A powerful reflection on what constitutes selfhood [from] Ball -- a rising star of US fiction... I defy anyone not to read its final pages through tears' -- Daily Mail

'Census is a curious, clever novel... Ball's style is spare and simple... Census is a help to greater understanding and an act of piety. It is a humane, surreal novel' -- Spectator

'This is both a curiously complicated and persuasively simple book... The text reads more like a letter exploring the complexity of love' --Irish Times

'A novel of abundant affecting moments and strange, fierce wisdom, Census is an exquisitely powerful testament to live' --Lisa McInerney

'Reading Jesse Ball's new novel feels like being hypnotised, or like having your heart broken... a dreamlike road-trip of a book ... overflowing with feeling'--White Review

'A wonderful, stirring, essential novel'--New Statesman

'Ball's writing is a blend of delicacy and panache... Census shimmers between a spectrum of moods; its prose has a versatility that can equally do heartfelt [...] and slyly ironic... remarkable'--Daily Telegraph

'Emotionally riveting and shot through with the most pressing issues of our time, Ball's exploration of humanity in modern America is not to be missed.'-- --Popsugar

From the Back Cover:

When a widower receives the devastating news that he doesn't have long to live, he is struck by the question of who will care for his adult son--a son whom he fiercely loves, a boy with Down syndrome. With no recourse in mind, and with a desire to see the country on one last trip, the man signs up as a census taker for a mysterious governmental bureau and leaves town with his son.

Traveling north, farther into the country, through a tapestry of towns named only by ascending letters of the alphabet, the man and his son encounter a wide range of human experience. While some townspeople welcome the pair into their homes, others, who bear the physical brand of past censuses on their ribs, are wary of their presence. Toward the edges of civilization, the landscape grows wilder and the towns grow farther apart and more blighted by industrial decay. As they approach Z, the man must confront a series of questions: What is the purpose of the census? Is he complicit in its mission? And just how will he learn to say goodbye to his son?

Wrenching and beautiful, Census is a novel about free will, grief, the power of memory, and the ferocity of parental love. It is also an indictment of the cruelties of our society by a major writer.

About this edition

• Publisher: Granta Books
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1783783753
• ISBN 13: 9781783783755
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Max Porter