The Development
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“A merry satire about the smart, moneyed, and demanding retirees living in a gated community . . . Scintillating on the surface and churning with danger below” (Booklist).
From a National Book Award–winning author, this is a collection of “nine darkly comic stories set in a gated community on Maryland’s Eastern Shore” (Publishers Weekly).
Something has disturbed the comfortably aging denizens of Heron Bay Estates, a pristine retirement community in Chesapeake Bay. In the dawn of the new millennium—and the evening of their lives—these empty nesters have discovered that their tidy enclave can be surprisingly colorful, shocking, and surreal.
From the high jinks of a toga party to a baffling suicide pact, John Barth, “a comic genius of the highest order,” brings compassion to the lives of his characters with the mordant humor that has earned him a reputation as one of our most original storytellers (The New York Times Book Review).
“Disturbing, but humorous . . . Reading ‘The Development’ is a worthy investment in lofty literary real estate.” —The Seattle Times
“Perhaps the most prodigally gifted comic novelists writing in English today.” —Newsweek
“A low-key, clear-eyed, battered-but-unbowed portrait of the diminishments and minor pleasures of age. Barth’s prose still has its sinew and snap; he examines near-decrepitude with mordant, rueful wit.” —Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
From the iconic Barth come nine darkly comic stories set in a gated community on Maryland's Eastern Shore. In his trademark style multiple endings, metaphysical musings, breaking the fourth wall Barth presents a searing indictment of a certain sociological class in the later stages of life, when the worries of advancing age beset characters who are dealing with or anticipating infirmities, burdensome caregiving and wrenching losses. Barth's antic eye for character is undiminished; he fleshes out a spectrum of men and women who run the gamut of professions, political beliefs and financial status, and whose relationships include unwavering marital love, random flirting and adultery. The current(ish) events simmering in the background (the Bush administration's follies, Uganda and Darfur, and several hurricanes) ground the narrative and put the stories into a broader context outside the community's gates. Urbane, discursive and humorous, often bawdy and never sentimental, these stories would be an accessible way for new readers to discover Barth, and his fans, of course, will eat this up.
