A Friend of the Family - Softcover

Grodstein, Lauren

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1616200170 ISBN 13: 9781616200176

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 2010

Synopsis

Pete Dizinoff, a skilled and successful New Jersey internist, has a loving and devoted wife, a network of close friends, an impressive house, and, most of all, a son, Alec, now nineteen, on whom he has pinned all his hopes. But Pete hadn’t expected his best friend’s troubled daughter to set her sights on his boy. When Alec falls under her spell, Pete sets out to derail the romance, never foreseeing the devastating consequences. In a riveting story of suburban tragedy, Lauren Grodstein charts a father’s fall from grace as he struggles to save his family, his reputation, and himself.

About this title

Review:

Amazon Best Books of the Month, November 2009: In A Friend of the Family, Lauren Grodstein, author of the breakout debut novel, Reproduction Is the Flaw of Love, goes to even greater literary heights with a contemporary suburban drama brewing with an undercurrent of violence that, with each turn of the page, takes on the weight of an American tragedy. As the book opens, Peter Dizinoff, a successful New Jersey doctor, is struggling to adjust to the aftermath of his actions as the foundation of his personal and professional life crack beneath his feet. At the center of his troubles is his beloved son Alec, who deflates his father's high expectations when he drops out of college after just three semesters and moves into the apartment above their garage. And when his son begins seeing Laura, the troubled daughter of Peter's best friend who is ten years older than Alec and lives in the tainted shadow of being acquitted for an unspeakable crime when she was 17, Alec's ambivalence to his father's hopes in living a good life turn into a simmering rage. Dizinoff, a man with a clear definition of right and wrong, flips back and forth in time as he narrates the history of events that build their way to a layered, emotionally wrenching climax. --Brad Thomas Parsons

About the Author:

LAUREN GRODSTEIN is the author of four previous works of fiction, including the New York Times bestselling novel A Friend of the Family, which was a Washington Post Best Book Pick, a New York Times Editor’s Pick, a BookPage Best Book, and an Indie Next Pick. She teaches creative writing at Rutgers University. Her website is www.laurengrodstein.com.

About this edition

• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1616200170
• ISBN 13: 9781616200176
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320