This Vacant Paradise
A Novel
-
- $14.99
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
“Patterson beautifully parses the consequences of one woman’s fall in this memorable, penetrating, fully achieved novel.” —The New York Times Book Review
Story Prize and California Book Award finalist Victoria Patterson revisits Newport Beach in This Vacant Paradise, examining the intersections of economics, class, race, sex, and family expectations during the mid–1990s.
Esther lives with her grandmother, a virulent matriarch who controls her family through her wealth. Esther knows that an advantageous marriage replete with social standing, familial and peer approval, and financial rewards will alleviate her struggles. But she has been known to self–sabotage, and her loved ones are rooting for her not to blow it with her latest beau, especially since she’s at the ripe old age of thirty–three.
All is well until she begins a tumultuous love affair with Charlie, a local college professor known for his unconventional ideals as much as for his golf game and good looks. He sets a fire inside Esther, sparking and delivering her—whether by choice or not—from the insular, safe, and stifling confines of societal expectations to an alternate, unglamorous, and indefinable course. The result is a stunning debut novel: a powerful work of fiction sure to provoke and engage.
“Patterson writes with the exuberance of a natural storyteller. Her cast is rich, her narrative sinuous and masterfully structured.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Considering the subject matter—the real housewives of Orange County—Patterson’s debut novel (after story collection Drift) is surprisingly sophisticated and nuanced.” —Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Considering the subject matter the real housewives of Orange County Patterson's debut novel (after story collection Drift) is surprisingly sophisticated and nuanced. In debt and unmarried, Esther Wilson works at a clothing boutique and lives with her wealthy grandmother, Eileen, whose financial generosity is orchestrated to "encourage dependence." Terrified of poverty, Esther is in the midst of securing a proposal from an unattractive but wealthy heir, but she blows it. Enter ex-boyfriend Charlie Murphy, who, though from a well-off family, is a liberal-minded sociology professor at the local community college, and therefore an object of Eileen's derision. Charlie takes it upon himself to emancipate Esther from the chains of vapid privilege, but with a huge inheritance imminent for him and nasty gossip circulating about Esther, Charlie's lefty enlightenment dims. As an acerbic commentary on mid-'90s Southern Californian excess, the novel walks a fine line between critic and unintentional participant commentaries on the retrograde position of Orange County women jostle against overindulgent physical description though Patterson's Southern California has echoes of Nathanael West and early Bruce Wagner.
