Long for This World
A Novel
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
While a scientist struggles with medical ethics, his family tackles troubles of their own in this novel by the author of The Cost of Good Intentions.
A wise and richly symphonic first novel, Long for This World is a thoroughly contemporary family drama that hinges on a riveting medical dilemma. Dr. Henry Moss is a dedicated geneticist who stumbles upon a possible cure for a disease that causes rapid aging and early death in children. Although his discovery may hold the key to eternal youth, exploiting it is an ethical minefield. Henry must make a painful choice: he can save the life of a critically ill boy he has grown to love—at the cost of his career—or he can sell his findings for a fortune to match the wealth of his dot-com-rich Seattle neighbors. Henry turns to his family for support, and in their intimately detailed lives unfolds a story of unforgettable characters grappling with their own demons.
A New York Times Notable Book
“This story will move you to tears and make you laugh out loud. It will also probably make you lie in bed at night and think about things that should be thought about: medical ethics, the moral choices in everyday life, the meaning of friendship and love and compassion, the need for connection.” —Elizabeth Berg, New York Times – bestselling author of The Confession Club
“A piercing scientific and familial romance . . . also a noisy novel of manners—and money . . . Byers effortlessly conveys the quick pivots and non sequiturs of familial byplay.” —Kerry Fried, New York Times Book Review
“A medical-ethical thriller with a warm domestic heart.” —Francine Prose, O, the Oprah Magazine
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dr. Henry Moss, the protagonist of Byers's compassionate, richly detailed debut novel (after an acclaimed short story collection, The Coast of Good Intentions), is a gentle, committed physician who studies a rare syndrome that causes rapid aging and premature death in children. While treating two sons from the same family who are both stricken with the syndrome, Moss discovers the holy grail of the medical profession, a blood mutation that has the potential to arrest the human aging process. On the one hand, the use of his discovery might tangle him in severe ethical dilemmas, and perhaps even cost Moss his license. On the other hand, he could make a lot of money. Byers cleverly sets his tale in late-1990s Seattle, at the height of the dot-com craze; the good doctor, like most everyone around him, is far from oblivious to the immense financial reward his discovery might bring him. With infinite tiny, prosaic and precise brush strokes, Byers depicts not only this riveting dilemma but also Moss's relationship with his family: his wry, critical Austrian wife, Ilse, his clownish, good-hearted 14-year-old son, Darren, and his 17-year-old daughter, Sandra, a talented basketball player who falls in love with a black player on a boys' team. These characterizations are so vivid and convincing that they are nearly hyper-real, as if Byers had set his protagonists under a microscope. Herein lies the book's great strength: while lesser writers would probably allow the compelling plot to dominate the narrative, Byers takes equal time to deliver a sympathetic but unflinching portrait of the American middle class and its discontents, brilliantly capturing the texture of late 20th-century life and the innate decency and fallibility of human beings trying to cope with its challenges. Author tour.
