The Blizzard Party
A Novel
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A panoramic novel of New York's elite set during the catastrophic blizzard of 1978
On the night of February 6, 1978, a devastating nor'easter strikes New York City. As the snowstorm rages, a crowd gathers for a grand party in the penthouse of the stately Apelles on the Upper West Side. Amidst the glittering guests, Mr. Albert Haynes Caldwell—partner emeritus at Swank, Brady & Plescher, Harvard alumnus, father of three, widower, atheist, and fiscal conservative—hatches a plan to fake a medical emergency and toss himself into the Hudson River. Jack Livings's The Blizzard Party is the riveting story of that fateful night, weaving together the lives of the city's elite as they converge during the historic blizzard. This panoramic literary novel offers a captivating glimpse into the glamour and drama of 1970s New York, exploring the secrets, desires, and desperation that can lurk beneath the surface of privilege.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Livings, PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize winner for the story collection The Dog, returns with a brilliant debut novel centering on a woman's memories of a fatal blizzard that occurred in her childhood. Hazel Saltwater determines to rewrite the story of Albert Caldwell's death after a party during the historic blizzard of 1978 in New York City when Hazel was six. (Her father, Erwin, has already published a blockbuster autobiographical novel about it called The Blizzard Party.) Hazel pieces together backstories of the pivotal players who attended the party, including the neurotic Erwin, transformed by guilt over a WWII experience; Caldwell, an astute lawyer plotting his suicide before succumbing to dementia; Turk Brunn, who runs an amusement park where visitors sign up to experience various forms of simulated abuse; and Turk's father, Lazlo, a linguistic virtuoso whose research inadvertently made him psychotic. Livings's genius resides in his ability to weave these disparate threads together through banal events (a Christmas tree jammed into an apartment's garbage chute; the selling of a painting; a brawl in a diner), illuminating an intricate pattern that, for Hazel, predestines a dénouement that is startling to the reader. Livings calls to mind the work of Michael Chabon as he brings insight into the way events and circumstances shape his characters' lives. This is one to savor.
