Commitment
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- 7,99 lei
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- 7,99 lei
Publisher Description
'Quietly devastating writing' The Observer
'Commitment is a majestic novel' Yiyun Li, author of The Book of Goose
A masterful and engrossing novel about a single mother's collapse and the fate of her family after she enters a California state hospital in the 1970s.
When Diane Aziz drives her oldest son, Walter, from LA to college, it will be her last parental act before falling into a deep depression. A single mother who believes that her children can attain all the things she hasn't, she's worked hard to secure their future. But when she enters hospital, her closest friend must keep the children safe and their mother's dreams for them alive.
At Berkeley College, Walter discovers a passion for architecture just as he realises his life as a student may end for lack of funds. Back home in LA, his sister Lina works in an ice-cream parlour while her wealthy classmates prepare for Ivy league schools, as she wages a high-stakes gamble to go there with them. And Donny, the little brother everybody loves, begins to drift towards a life on the beach, where he falls into an escalating relationship with drugs.
A resonant story about family, duty, and the attendant struggles that come when a parent falls ill, it honours the spirit of imperfect mothers, and the under-chronicled significance of friends. With Commitment, Mona Simpson has written her most important and unforgettable novel.
'Moving . . . [Simpson] is up there with Anne Tyler and Barbara Kingsolver when it comes to great chroniclers of American families'
The Spectator
'Simpson is a national treasure . . . I was immersed in their world and in Simpson's masterful vision for them. Simpson is so attuned to the family heart and oh dear Walter, Lina, and Donnie, have you forever moved mine'
Weike Wang, author of Joan Is Okay
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Simpson (Casebook) follows the paths of three siblings after their mother's mental health breakdown in her well-drawn latest. After Walter Aziz, the oldest, leaves Los Angeles to attend UC Berkeley, Diane, a single mother, overwhelmed by the depression that has stalked her for most of her life, stops going to work and eventually signs herself into a psychiatric hospital, leaving behind Walter's sister, Lina, a high school senior, and younger brother, Donnie. As their mother's best friend steps up to take care of the children, they grapple with how to proceed. Lina works in an ice-cream shop and wants to head east for college; Walter, having discovered a passion for architecture, questions whether he can pursue a field in which aesthetics are valued above utility; and Donnie drifts aimlessly along Southern California's beaches. Their mother's breakdown distances them emotionally from their peers. Walter, invited to attend a sorority party on campus, gives his regrets, overwhelmed by a sense of obligation to his family: "I have a smaller world now." Lina, meanwhile, envies the "breeziness" exuding from the homes of her more stable friends. Simpson foregoes surprises or dramatic turns, drawing readers instead with deep and tender considerations of her characters, as they're forced to learn hard truths while still in the prime of their youths. Fans of family chronicles will not be disappointed.
