Dissident Gardens (Folio Prize Nominee)
by Jonathan Lethem
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Pub Date Jan 30 2014 | Archive Date Feb 15 2015
Random House UK, Vintage Publishing | Jonathan Cape
Description
In 1955, Rose Zimmer got screwed. It wasn’t the first time, and it wasn’t the last. In fact, Rose – like all American Communists – got screwed by the entire twentieth century. She doesn’t take it lying down. For over forty years she pounds the streets of Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, terrorising the neighbourhood, and her family, with the implacability of her beliefs, the sheer force of her grudge.
And the generations that follow Rose will not easily escape her influence, her ire, her radicalism. Foremost among these is Miriam, Rose's charismatic and passionate want-away hippie daughter, who heads for the Greenwich Village of the Sixties; her black stepson Cicero, an angry debunking machine; and her bewildered grandson Sergius, who finds himself an orphan in the capitalist now.
A radical family epic, and an alternative view of the American twentieth century, Dissident Gardens is the story of a group of individuals who fought and lost, but might one day win. It is a blast of pure style and literary dazzle from one of the great and most innovative writers of the age.
A Note From the Publisher
UK edition - available for readers in the UK and Commonwealth (excluding Canada) only.
Advance Praise
The
cast makes for a heady, swirly mix of fascinating, lonely people.
Lethem’s writing, as always, packs a witty punch. The epoch each
character inhabits is artfully etched and the book is as illuminating of
20th-century American history as it is of the human burden of
overcoming alienation. - Publisher's Weekly
Lethem
is breathtaking in this torrent of potent voices, searing ironies,
popculture allusions, and tragicomic complexities. He shreds the folk
scene, eviscerates quiz shows...and offers unusual perspectives on
societal debacles and tragic injustices. A righteous, stupendously
involving novel about the personal toll of failed political movements
and the perplexing obstacles to doing good. - Booklist (starred review)
Lethem has written a brilliant, funny, compendious novel at whose heart lies a sharp, slim blade of thought and style. - Guardian
Superb… Dissident Gardens can be placed squarely in the canon of the great American social novel. - Financial Times
This epic family novel criss-crosses generations from the Fifties to the present day. - Tatler
An almighty fictional reckoning. - GQ
An insightful look at radical politics. - Independent
A novel long overdue. - Times Literary Supplement
An urgent and necessary message at a time when Wall Street is once again poised with its heel on the face of the 99%. - Observer
[A] wonderful novel. - List
Masterful. - Glasgow Sunday Herald
Dissident Gardens seamlessly
weaves together three generations, yet it doesn't broadcast itself as a
multi-generational epic, nor is it afflicted by the desire to pose as
the next great American novel. It’s an intimate book. - Scotsman
Jonathan Lethem’s ninth novel and finest work so far. - The Economist
With this novel Jonathan Lethem has inhabited the vacated position among the first rank of American realists. - Sunday Telegraph
Written with argumentative brio and immense stylistic fireworks. - The Times
A book with a soul at least as big as its ideas. - GQ
As assured as it is ambitious. - Jewish Chronicle
Lethem is a tremendously gifted novelist. - Sunday Business Post
Marketing Plan
A dazzling novel from one of America's finest writers – the story of three generations of a radical New York family
A masterpiece of pure style from a truly great writer
Singular advance reviews from America. See 'reviews'
Lethem - the subject of university courses and symposia in the UK - will be in the country for publication.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9780224093958 |
| PRICE | £18.99 (GBP) |
