Overview

Otto and Sophie Bentwood live childless in a renovated Brooklyn brownstone. The complete works of Goethe line their bookshelf, their stainless-steel kitchen is newly installed, and their Mercedes is parked curbside. But after Sophie is bitten on the hand while trying to feed a half-starved neighborhood cat, a series of small and ominous disasters begin to plague their lives. The fault lines of their marriage are revealed -- echoing the fractures of society around them, slowly wrenching itself apart. First published in 1970 to wide acclaim, Desperate Characters stands as one of the most dazzling and rigorous examples of the storyteller's craft in postwar American literature -- a novel that, according to Irving Howe, ranks with "Billy Budd, The Great Gatsby, Miss Lonelyhearts, and Seize the Day."

ISBN-13

9780393318944

ISBN-10

039331894X

Weight

0.68 Pounds

Dimensions

5.60 x 0.40 x 8.30 In

List Price

$14.95

Format

Paperback

Language

English

Pages

192 pages

Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

Published On

1999-05-17



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