The Unfortunates

Author: Sophie McManus

Stock information

General Fields

  • : 30.00 NZD
  • : 9780099559078
  • : Cornerstone
  • : Windmill Books
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  • : May 2016
  • : 198mm X 129mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : 24.99
  • : November 2015
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  • : books

Special Fields

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  • : Sophie McManus
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  • : Paperback
  • : 1
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  • : 354
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Barcode 9780099559078
9780099559078

Description

A sharply written, funny and heart-breaking debut about inheritance, influence, class and power. Who knew the rich deserved our pity? CeCe Somner, once known for her cruel wit as much as for her tremendous generosity, is now in opulent decline. Afflicted with a rare disease and touched by mortality for the first time, her gilded, bygone values collide with an unforgiving present. As her troubled, spoiled son George and his outsider wife, Iris, struggle to resolve mounting financial and familial troubles, CeCe must face the Somner dynasty's dark legacy; all three must learn what life beyond the long, shimmering shadow cast by the family's past may become. But when George's secrets culminate in an unexpected crime, no riches can put things right for the unfortunate Somners. The Unfortunates is a rollicking, wide-ranging story of pharmaceutical drug trials and Wall Street corruption; of pride and prejudice; of paranoia and office politics; of inheritance, influence, class and power. Hilarious and heart breaking, Sophie McManus' debut is a meditation on love and a contemporary American tragedy of breathtaking scope.

Promotion info

For fans of Joshua Ferris, Meg Wolitzer and Claire Messud.

Reviews

"McManus, with her intricate re-creation of CeCe's regal life, hearkens to an earlier artist far less frequently invoked: Edith Wharton ... some of the funniest writing I've read in years: Martin Amis funny; wheezing, choke-on-your-laughter funny. After reading so many comic novels that eventually shatter in brittle cynicism or evaporate in gassy sentimentality, I moved through The Unfortunates with a slowly accruing sense of awe as these characters grew simultaneously more outrageous and more sympathetic." Washington Post "McManus, with her intricate re-creation of CeCe's regal life, hearkens to an earlier artist far less frequently invoked: Edith Wharton ... some of the funniest writing I've read in years: Martin Amis funny; wheezing, choke-on-your-laughter funny. After reading so many comic novels that eventually shatter in brittle cynicism or evaporate in gassy sentimentality, I moved through The Unfortunates with a slowly accruing sense of awe as these characters grew simultaneously more outrageous and more sympathetic." Washington Post "McManus renders her opulent protagonists sympathetic by investigating their family 'values' with wit and generosity" Daily Mail "Reads as a cross between Tom Wolfe and Brett Easton Ellis at their respective peaks" Paste magazine "The Unfortunates is both a mirror on the income inequality of the current moment and a social novel in the old, grand, plotty mode: voracious for detail and punctuated by gasp-inducing turns of fate. Its subjects are money and the people unfortunate enough to have it. Who knew the rich deserved so much to be pitied?" -- Salvatore Scibona, author of THE END

Author description

Sophie McManus grew up in New York City and attended Vassar College and Sarah Lawrence College's MFA program. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Saltonstall Foundation and the Jentel Foundation. Her work has appeared in American Short Fiction and Tin House, among other publications. She teaches writing in Brooklyn, New York. The Unfortunates is her first novel.