The Clasp
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
'Glitters with wit and wisdom' Guardian
'A thing of pure joy' Stylist
'I couldn't put it down' Grazia
Back in college, Victor loved Kezia, Kezia loved Nathaniel and Nathaniel loved himself.
Now, ten years on and reunited at the wedding of a friend, it’s as if nothing has changed. Almost.
Victor has just been fired from a middling search engine, Kezia is second-in-command to an eccentric jewellery designer, and Nathaniel, former literary cool kid, is now one of LA’s two million aspiring TV writers. As the champagne flows, Victor finds himself sharing a bizarre encounter with the mother of the groom that triggers an obsession over a legendary necklace.
Could a trip to Paris in search of the missing piece of jewellery doom or save their friendship?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Taking a page from her essay collections (I Was Told There'd Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number), Crosley once again brandishes a mix of smarts and sarcasm to commemorate some of life's more mortifying moments in her first work of fiction. The novel begins at a luxe wedding as once-close friends Victor, a recently fired misanthropic data analyst at an Internet start-up; Kezia, the tightly wound second in command to an eccentric New York jeweler; and Nathaniel, a foppish, struggling TV writer in L.A. rehash old sexual tensions and lament their stagnant existences since the carefree days of college a decade prior. A third of the way through the book, the narrative shifts from oft-explored late-20-something territory into a ridiculous yet entertaining comedy-of-errors adventure caper with doddering Victor at the helm. When the ailing mother of the groom discovers him drunkenly passed out on her bed the night of the wedding, she inexplicably reveals the whereabouts of a secret stash of jewels to him before dying including a sketch of the long-lost 114-karat necklace featured in Guy de Maupassant's famed short story "The Necklace" and clues to its supposed whereabouts. Victor's harebrained attempts at tracking the necklace down, culminating in a French chateau break-in with a mildly concerned Kezia and Nathaniel in hot pursuit, make not only for fun reading but hint at the surprisingly poignant extent of just how far old acquaintances will go to save one another's hides.
