Town House
A Novel
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4.5 • 8 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Jack Madigan should be leading an enviable life. He’s the sole heir of a ’70s rock icon. He lives with his retro-obsessed teenage son, Harlan, in a once-magnificent Boston town house. But now 36, Jack’s painting career is buckling under a raging case of agoraphobia. And when the foreclosure notice arrives, Jack must face losing the only home he’s ever known—and his only safe zone. When Jack’s ex-wife announces that Harlan would be better off living with her and her vitamin-enriched fiancé, Jack has to figure out how to deter the perky, inexperienced real-estate agent, hold on to his house, keep his son at home, and—through the tenacity of the little girl next door—finally step out onto the sidewalk.
Fox 2000 swooped in to pre-empt the film rights while Town House was still on submission to publishers. Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions is set to produce the movie and Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter Doug Wright (Memoirs of a Geisha) is adapting the screenplay. A book with the ability to both entertain and move us, Town House is a smart, acerbic novel bursting with heart and quirky charm.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An agoraphobe fights to save his house, his son and his sanity in Cohen's comic, big screen ready debut. Jack Madigan has sequestered himself for most of his adult life in a decaying Boston townhouse along with his so-uncool-he's-cool son, Harlan; a one-eyed, one-eared cat; and, until she left, his wife Penelope. Jack is content to pursue his raison d' tre of creating the perfect shade of white interior paint, but the outside world comes crashing in: Jack's income royalties from dead rock star dad Baz (think: Ozzy Osbourne cut down in his prime by a snapping turtle) dries up; Penelope wants Harlan to move to L.A. and live with her; the plucky, precocious, ankle-biting (really) girl next door keeps showing up in Jack's house; and Dorrie, a lovable dingbat realtor, swoops in to sell the townhouse (valued at $4.5 mil). Love blossoms, neuroses are zapped and an 11th-hour discovery saves the day. If it sounds formulaic, it is, but it's also terrifically written; Cohen's affinity for her nut-job characters is infectious and will keep readers involved as the plot reaches its peachy end.
