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ISBN: 0394511891

ISBN13: 9780394511894

Aberration of Starlight

Name: Four Part Dis-Harmony
Item: Aberration of Starlight
Rating: 4
Author: Thriftbooks.com User

By Gilbert Sorrentino

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Book Overview

Set at a boardinghouse in rural New Jersey in the summer of 1939, this novel revolves around four people who experience the comedies, torments and rare pleasures of family, romance and sex while on vacation from Brooklyn and the Depression. Billy Recco, an eager ten-year-old in search of a father... Marie Recco, nee McGrath, an attractive divorcee caught between her son and father, without a life of her own... John McGrath, dignified in manner yet brutally soured by life, insanely fearful of his daughter's restlessness... Tom Thebus, a rakish salesman who precipitates the conflict between Marie's hopes and her father's wrath. What emerges is a sure understanding of four people who are occasionally ridiculous, but whose integrity and good intentions are consistently, and tragically, frustrated. Combining humor and feeling, balancing the details and the rhythms of experience, Aberration of Starlight re-creates a time and a place as it captures the sadness and value of four lives. First published by Random House in 1980, it is widely considered one of Sorrentino's finest novels. This description may be from another edition of this product.

Format:Hardcover

Language:English

ISBN:0394511891

ISBN13:9780394511894

Release Date:July 1980

Publisher:Random House (NY)

Length:211 Pages

Weight:0.90 lbs.

Related Subjects

Contemporary Domestic Life Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Literary Literature & Fiction Women's Fiction

Customer Reviews

2 customer ratings | 2 reviews

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Rated 4 stars
Four Part Dis-Harmony

By Thriftbooks.com User, March 28, 2008

The same story told by the four main characters - and all four are unreliable! Po-mo to the fourth power, as we try to construct the truth through such disparate eyes. I suppose each reader will come up with what we hope the future held for the four of them, but the only clue I have to what Sorrentino might have had in mind is the order in which he told their stories. But I'm probably wrong considering it's G. S. I wouldn't...

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Rated 5 stars
4 people + 1 night = a brilliant, funny, heartrending novel.

By Thriftbooks.com User, August 15, 1997

At a boardinghouse in New Jersey in 1939, four people come together: a ten-year-old boy, his mother and grandfather, and a salesman on the make. As each relates his or her own version or their meeting in a series of superbly-constructed yet vibrant vignettes, the pathos & hilarity build to a climax that both delights & instructs, leading to laughter that hurts. Sorrentino has contrived an elegantly-patterned narrative...

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