Gain

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Playground braids together two very different stories in a novel on "the Promethean messianism of corporate America" (Greil Marcus, San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle).

In one story, Laura Body, divorced mother of two and a real-estate agent in the small town of Lacewood, Illinois, plunges into a new existence when she learns that she has ovarian cancer. In the other, Clare & Company, a soap manufacturer begun by three brothers in nineteenth-century Boston, grows over the course of a century and a half into an international consumer products conglomerate based in Laura's hometown. Clare's stunning growth reflects the kaleidoscopic history of America; Laura Body's life is changed forever by Clare.
Gain's stunning conclusion reveals the countless invisible connections between the largest enterprises and the smallest lives.

"Erudite, penetrating and splendidly written . . . There is no gainsaying the remarkable artistry and authority with which Powers, in this dazzling book, continues to impart his singular vision of our life and times." —Bruce Bawer, The New York Times Book Review

"Richard Powers' powerful and peculiar novel, Gain, is the largest compliment any author has paid to the American reading public in decades." —Thomas M. Disch, The Washington Post Book World

"Subtle, provocative, and powerful . . . Richard Powers' deceptively simple and terrifyingly effective novel Gain says it better than anyone has in a long time: buyer beware." —Rick Moody, Voice Literary Supplement

"Gain only confirms that Powers is, in fact, a major American novelist." —Adam Kirsch, The New Republic