The Brooklyn Follies - Softcover

Auster Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571276547 ISBN 13: 9780571276547

Publisher: FABER ET FABER, 2011

Synopsis

Paperback. Pages: 320 Language: English Publisher:. FABER AND FABER I was looking for a quiet place to die Someone recommended Brooklyn. and so the next morning I travelled down there from Westchester to scope out the terrain ... So begins Paul Austers remarkable new novel. The Brooklyn Follies. Set against the backdrop of the contested US election of 2000. it tells the story of Nathan and Tom. an uncle and nephew double-act. One in remission from lung cancer. divorced. and estranged from his only daughter. the other hiding away from his once-promising academic career. and. indeed. from life in general. Having accidentally ended up in the same Brooklyn neighbourhood. they discover a community teeming with life and passion. When Lucy. a little girl who refuses to speak. comes into their lives. there is suddenly a bridge from their pasts that offers them the possibility of red...

About this title

About the Author:

Paul Auster is the bestselling author of Oracle Night, The Book of Illusions, and Timbuktu. I Thought My Father Was God, the NPR National Story Project anthology, which he edited, was also a national bestseller. His work has been translated into thirty languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

I opened our Rand McNally Road Atlas and studied the map of Vermont. "Get off at Exit Three," I said to Tom. "We're looking for Route Thirty, which squiggles up diagonally to the northwest. After about forty miles, we'll start bobbing and weaving until we get to Rutland, find Route Seven, and take that straight to Burlington."
Why do I linger over these trivial details? Because the truth of the story lies in the details, and I have no choice but to tell the story exactly as it happened. If we hadn't made that decision to get off the highway at Brattleboro and follow our noses to Route Thirty, many of the events in this book never would have taken place. I am thinking especially of Tom when I say that. Both Lucy and I profited from the decision as well, but for Tom, the long-suffering hero of these Brooklyn Follies, it was probably the most important decision of his life. At the time, he had no inkling of the
consequences, no knowledge of the whirlwind he had set in motion. Like Kafka's doll, he thought he was simply looking for a change of scenery, but because he left one road and took another, Fortune unexpectedly reached out her arms to him and carried our boy into a different world.

About this edition

• Publisher: FABER ET FABER
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0571276547
• ISBN 13: 9780571276547
• Binding: Paperback