One D.O.A., One on the Way
A Novel
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- $25.99
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
One D.O.A., One on the Way is a novel which opens on Jay, a location scout for a movie production company. She is complacently married to Alt, who has just been diagnosed with a grave illness and gone back to his palatial family home, back to the care of his parents. Which is just fine with Jay—or so she tells herself at the start. But standing left of center in this still-prosperous but mortally wounded family does not get easier as the weeks wear on. As she tries to negotiate her way around the anger of Saunders, Alt’s despised twin brother; maintain her friendship with Petal, his beautiful wife; and protect what’s left of the innocence of Collie, the niece caught in the middle, Jay finds more than the Louisiana heat oppressive.
With her trademark biting humor and breathtaking facility with minimalist language, Mary Robison, author of the award-winning Why Did I Ever, sets the stage for a beguiling Southern Gothic sure to delight her fanatical following and new readers alike.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With a laconic voice and a despairing sense of humor, film location scout Eve Broussard narrates award-winning Robison's (Why Did I Ever) grim yet witty novella about the dissolution of a family and a city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Eve and unstable-but-armed Petal are married to 42-year-old twins, Adam and Saunders, who not unlike the two black swans forever circling the statue commemorating their sister's suicide spin their nearly identical lives aimlessly: drinking, fretting over hepatitis C and hording cocaine in their parents' stately New Orleans mansion. This family's Big Easy is a world where lush excess and harsh deprivation work side-by-side to create a malaise sinister in its paralyzing appeal. Told in terse, numbered passages, Robison's narrative is jumpy but effective, interspersed with and informed by startling statistics ("More than 50 former NOPD officers are in prison, 2 on death row"). Distilled episodes of mistaken identity, marriage trouble and potential infidelity build to a crucial decision for Eve, who may be damned if she does, damned if she doesn't.
