Hume's Fork: A Novel - Hardcover

Ron Cooper

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1890862509 ISBN 13: 9781890862503

Publisher: Bancroft Press,The,U.S., 2007

Synopsis

"Barely adequate philosophy professor Legare Hume has a mind-body problem. No matter how far he goes, no matter how hard he thinks, he can't escape the world he lives in. On the run from his wife Tally, Legare joins brilliant but exceptionally awkward colleague Saul Grossman to attend the American Philosophical Association s Charleston, South Carolina conference, where worlds and walks of life collide in a strange and satirical amalgamation that can only be described as reality.Legare s mission is simple enough: put up with the conference, read a paper he never thought anyone would want to hear, receive the tenure he isn't sure he wants, and return, or not, to the wife who nearly killed him before he left. But his plans are hijacked by a botched hotel reservation and the all-too-convenient presence of the Southern family Legare has worked very hard all his adult life to avoid.Hume s Fork is a brilliantly satirical and philosophical novel, every bit as funny as it is intelligent a true original. Legare s conflict Hume s fork, if you will becomes the reader s, for all worlds are one, and nothing can truly be separate from everything else."

About this title

Review

?Reading Hume's Fork is like having a conversation with John Kennedy Toole, Pat Conroy, and Noam Chomsky all at once?and what is positively brilliant about Ron Cooper's debut novel is that this works so seamlessly. Cooper's dialogue is comic satire at its finest while striking a chord at the universal themes of life."

Synopsis

Barely adequate philosophy professor Legare Hume has a mind-body problem. No matter how far he goes, no matter how hard he thinks, he can't escape the world he lives in. On the run from his wife Tally, Legare joins brilliant but exceptionally awkward colleague Saul Grossman to attend the American Philosophical Association's Charleston, SC conference. Legare's mission is simple enough: put up with the conference, read a paper he never thought anyone would want to hear, receive the tenure he isn't sure he wants, and return, or not, to the wife who nearly killed him before he left. But his plans are hijacked by a botched hotel reservation and the all-too-convenient presence of the Southern family Legare has worked very hard all his adult life to avoid. Circumstances - namely, the inconvenient death of a mentally challenged uncle - bring the whole family together. Meanwhile, wrestlers in the guise of religious figures enact the Apocalypse. And through it all, there's Lucian, Legare's late brother, who killed himself years ago. What does his death mean? What's the family secret Legare has been hiding from?

What's there to learn from this rapid-fire collision of worlds, where all kinds of people and all kinds of views are inherently and bizarrely connected? And what will it take for Legare to be both in and of the world?

About this edition

• Publisher: Bancroft Press,The,U.S.
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1890862509
• ISBN 13: 9781890862503
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 259