The Ruined House
A Novel
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3.8 • 5 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“In The Ruined House a ‘small harmless modicum of vanity’ turns into an apocalyptic bonfire. Shot through with humor and mystery and insight, Ruby Namdar's wonderful first novel examines how the real and the unreal merge. It's a daring study of madness, masculinity, myth-making and the human fragility that emerges in the mix."
—Colum McCann, National Book Award-winning author of Let the Great World Spin
Winner of the Sapir Prize, Israel’s highest literary award
Picking up the mantle of legendary authors such as Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, an exquisite literary talent makes his debut with a nuanced and provocative tale of materialism, tradition, faith, and the search for meaning in contemporary American life.
Andrew P. Cohen, a professor of comparative culture at New York University, is at the zenith of his life. Adored by his classes and published in prestigious literary magazines, he is about to receive a coveted promotion—the crowning achievement of an enviable career. He is on excellent terms with Linda, his ex-wife, and his two grown children admire and adore him. His girlfriend, Ann Lee, a former student half his age, offers lively companionship. A man of elevated taste, education, and culture, he is a model of urbanity and success.
But the manicured surface of his world begins to crack when he is visited by a series of strange and inexplicable visions involving an ancient religious ritual that will upend his comfortable life.
Beautiful, mesmerizing, and unsettling, The Ruined House unfolds over the course of one year, as Andrew’s world unravels and he is forced to question all his beliefs. Ruby Namdar’s brilliant novel embraces the themes of the American Jewish literary canon as it captures the privilege and pedantry of New York intellectual life in the opening years of the twenty-first century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Namdar's disappointing debut, Andrew Cohen, an NYU professor and formerly prolific writer, has a long, slow, incredibly banal mid-life crisis. Stretched out over the year leading up to Sept. 11, 2001, Cohen wallows in self-pity, ambling toward a breakdown that reads more like a man grasping at his waning privilege than a human being fearful in the face of mortality. Although Cohen left his ex-wife and daughters decades ago, when the girls were little, only now does he realize how absent they are from his life. Vulnerable for perhaps the first time, he's haunted by his abandonment of them and yet can't seem to bring himself to take responsibility. Otherwise, Cohen goes on to suffer from dwindling sexual mojo, writer's block, and nightmares. He feels suffocated by his beautiful, decades-younger girlfriend (a former student) and doesn't understand why he isn't awarded a promotion he'd been expecting. Perhaps because of the unrelenting internal narration, the book remains plotless. Cohen falls asleep, has anxiety attacks, stays awake, rushes into taxis, eats or forgets to eat, and finds himself bewildered by his own dysfunction. In prose as tedious as Cohen's misery, Namdar tries to underscore the significance of his narrator's collapse by cataloguing every hour of every day. But Cohen remains the jerk he's always been, and the reader is left wishing he would see what they do that his self-absorption only intensifies, rather than dissipates, against the forthcoming tragedy of actual human suffering looming on the horizon.
Customer Reviews
Bravo Mr Namdar
So beautifully written, such exquisite prose, it’s hard to imagine this is a translation.
Namdar’s writing soars in this epic tale. Not for the casual reader or the faint hearted; but an unforgettable read.
Amazing first novel!