Sunland
A Novel
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- $25.99
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
Sid Dulaney, in his mid-thirties, between jobs and short on funds, has moved back to Tucson to take care of his beloved grandmother. To hold down the cost of her prescriptions, he reluctantly starts smuggling medications over the border. His picaresque misadventures involve the lovable eccentrics at her retirement village, Mexican gang threats, a voluptuous former babysitter, midnight voicemails from his exasperated ex-girlfriend, and, perplexingly, a giraffe. This first novel by the winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award proves Waters is an important new voice in American fiction. A big, rollicking, character-filled novel, Sunland is an entertaining and humane view at life on the margins in America today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This offbeat, droll debut novel from Reno, Nev., native Waters, author of the collection Desert Gothic, concerns a disillusioned 30-something man's struggles to put his life back together after a relationship goes awry. High school English teacher Sid Dulaney has fled Massachusetts following a breakup with his unfaithful girlfriend, Juliet, resettling in his hometown of Tucson, Ariz., where he looks after his octogenarian grandmother, Nana. To help allay the expense of keeping her in an assisted living facility, Sid sells cheap prescription drugs purchased from Mexican pharmacies to Nana's eccentric fellow residents. In the meantime, he pursues substitute teaching work and spends time with his Yale-educated, underachieving friend Warsaw, who follows a bizarre self-help guru. Sid also begins dating attractive social worker Mona, who shares his interest in starting a family. When a blood clot leaves Nana partially paralyzed, however, her escalating medical expenses lead Sid to consider risky but lucrative work as a guide for illegal border crossings, putting a strain on his relationship with Mona. Though occasionally too quirky for its own good, this is a diverting narrative of a young man's roundabout path to finding his way again.
