Isaac And His Devils
-
- 4,99 €
-
- 4,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
“Enchanting . . . Bursting with talent and love of life,” said the Washington Post Book World of Fernanda Eberstadt’s extraordinary first novel, Low Tide. Now her exuberant gifts are even more abundantly evident on a larger scale.
Isaac and His Devils tells the story of a boy who throws off sparks of what might be genius—and of his father, a man who has walked away from the possibilities of his own brilliance.
Isaac Hooker, from birth to his twenty-second year, compensates for his ill health with a radiant tireless curiosity. He is certain of his destiny: he will “transfigure America in some vague, huge way.” He is the smartest. He will be the best, the first. At his side—watching him, loving him, driving him (to his mother’s ceaseless irritation)—is Isaac’s father, Sam, who sees in his son’s promise the triumphs he himself might have had . . . and Isaac’s teacher, Agnes Urquhart, who recognizes in the boy’s wild and clumsy energy the genesis of great achievement, and who begins to turn him towards it . . . Until Isaac, realizing he must confront and escape the devils that defeated his father, finds his life suddenly, frighteningly, out of control.
Around their story, the larger story of the family unfolds. Moving backwards and forwards in time, the narrative weaves an intricate portrait of Isaac’s parents’ early lives in their insular New Hampshire town; of their too-young, mismatched marriage; of Sam’s sacrifice of ambition and bookish dreams to satisfy the immediate needs of his sensual, down-to-earth, and pregnant wife; of the difficult yet tender attachment between Isaac and his younger, less promising brother; and especially of the powerful love and hate between Isaac and his father—as the son, who secretly sees his own progress into realms where his father cannot follow as betrayal, pushes himself out of childhood and towards the first moments of becoming an adult.
A novel of rich feeling and intelligence. A major leap forwards for a brilliantly gifted novelist.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Confirming the promise of her first novel, Low Tide , Eberstadt tells a captivating tale. The ongoing struggles of the eponymous Isaac's devils within his large and awkward body produce gale forces--and a rollicking read. We meet Isaac Hooker at various moments throughout the stormy two decades of his life in a rural New Hampshire town. First as the insatiably curious and ungainly child of Sam, a would-be professor who instead teaches at the local high school, and Mattie, a slovenly and energetic power; then as the often cruel older brother of the order-loving Turner; as the brilliant but extremely difficult high school student who has read more than his teachers (and lets them know it); as the Harvard dropout who lives with his former math teacher, Agnes Urquhart, in an isolated cabin; and finally, as the neglectful son who falls apart after his father's death. Isaac is a child hell-bent on knowing everything, to the annoyance of his mother and the adoration of his father. In her sensitive account of Isaac's desperate search for truth and meaning and his wary circling of his father's failure, Eberstadt not only shows us the life of one young eccentric, but also paints portraits of small-town existence and the universal truths and pains of parental relationships. In an often dense and sometimes slow--but redeemingly clear-eyed--narrative, Eberhardt's characters are passionately conceived and rich with life.
