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A Disorder Peculiar to the Country : A Novel
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A Disorder Peculiar to the Country
Author(s): Ken Kalfus
Review(s):
“This is—despite Kalfus’s skewering of the very notion—a heroic book, brimming with an almost evangelical need to let a satirical truth replace the fact-based fictions of some glowing obituaries.”
“Brilliant. . . . It’s an engaging and provocative enterprise, a novel that challenges accepted pieties and dislodges expectations. . . . Kalfus’s daring, intelligent exploration of animosity in its various forms is a novelistic evocation of global despair.”
“Hilarious. . . . The novel miraculously manages to avoid patness or bombast. As in Jay McInerney’s recent The Good Life, Kalfus puts 9/11 up against the steel-plated narcissism of New Yorkers—with very different, and very funny, results.”
“An interesting departure from Kalfus’s Slavic-inflected earlier fiction. Astringent, accomplished black comedy.”
“A stinging new fiction. . . . Kalfus recalibrates all the standard divorce tropes into something sharper than that provided by more-innocent, or at least more-isolationist, divorce fare.”
“Savagely hilarious. . . . This is a scathing portrait of self-absorbed people misunderestimating the complexity and malignancy of motives the drive unfolding events.”
“A surprising new novel. . . . Unlike so many satirical novelists at work today, Kalfus doesn’t pull his punches. From the very first scene, this is a bracing book. . . . This is a novel about how people chafe against the huge, un-sentient brush of history.”
“Kalfus’ new novel [is] like a fever dream of recent events. . . .Through the interbleeding of public and private story lines and his lampooning approach, Kalfus [is] freeing the way we think about Sept. 11 and the war on terror from a ready-made mold, the rigid cast of a hardening historical view. If hyperbole can be weaponized anywhere in literature, it is here.”
“Truly powerful.... Rollicking.... A genuine commentary upon the lot of us.”
“Intrepid and dolefully hilarious. . . . Disorder dishes out plenty of outrageousness, but what makes it truly resonate is its scorching psychological portraits. A tried-and-true moralist, Kalfus transforms the humor of his tantrum-prone protags into something much deeper—a scathing indictment of their puerile selfishness.”
ISBN: 9780060501419
Author(s): Ken Kalfus
A National Book Award Finalist
"The best novel yet about 9/11.... A brilliant new comedy of manners, A Disorder Peculiar to the Country is about the way a conflict takes on a logic and momentum of its own." —Salon
“Savagely hilarious.” —Elle
Joyce and Marshall each think the other is killed on September 11—and must swallow their disappointment when the other arrives home. As their bitter divorce is further complicated by anthrax scares, suicide bombs, and foreign wars, they suffer, in ways unexpectedly personal and increasingly ludicrous, the many strange ravages of our time.
In this astonishing black comedy, Kalfus suggests how our nation’s public calamities have encroached upon our most private illusions.
Review(s):
“This is—despite Kalfus’s skewering of the very notion—a heroic book, brimming with an almost evangelical need to let a satirical truth replace the fact-based fictions of some glowing obituaries.”
“Brilliant. . . . It’s an engaging and provocative enterprise, a novel that challenges accepted pieties and dislodges expectations. . . . Kalfus’s daring, intelligent exploration of animosity in its various forms is a novelistic evocation of global despair.”
“Hilarious. . . . The novel miraculously manages to avoid patness or bombast. As in Jay McInerney’s recent The Good Life, Kalfus puts 9/11 up against the steel-plated narcissism of New Yorkers—with very different, and very funny, results.”
“An interesting departure from Kalfus’s Slavic-inflected earlier fiction. Astringent, accomplished black comedy.”
“A stinging new fiction. . . . Kalfus recalibrates all the standard divorce tropes into something sharper than that provided by more-innocent, or at least more-isolationist, divorce fare.”
“Savagely hilarious. . . . This is a scathing portrait of self-absorbed people misunderestimating the complexity and malignancy of motives the drive unfolding events.”
“A surprising new novel. . . . Unlike so many satirical novelists at work today, Kalfus doesn’t pull his punches. From the very first scene, this is a bracing book. . . . This is a novel about how people chafe against the huge, un-sentient brush of history.”
“Kalfus’ new novel [is] like a fever dream of recent events. . . .Through the interbleeding of public and private story lines and his lampooning approach, Kalfus [is] freeing the way we think about Sept. 11 and the war on terror from a ready-made mold, the rigid cast of a hardening historical view. If hyperbole can be weaponized anywhere in literature, it is here.”
“Truly powerful.... Rollicking.... A genuine commentary upon the lot of us.”
“Intrepid and dolefully hilarious. . . . Disorder dishes out plenty of outrageousness, but what makes it truly resonate is its scorching psychological portraits. A tried-and-true moralist, Kalfus transforms the humor of his tantrum-prone protags into something much deeper—a scathing indictment of their puerile selfishness.”
ISBN: 9780060501419