The Age of Consent - Hardcover

Wolff, Geoffrey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0340637773 ISBN 13: 9780340637777

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995

Synopsis

Ted and Maisie's parents moved to the community of Blackberry Mountain in upstate New York full of hope for the future; they would live a wholesome life rooted in the natural world, free from social constraints and the ugly urban climate of the early seventies. But all this changes when Maisie, age fifteen, stands poised at the top of a waterfall on the 4th of July and looks down over her family and friends before plunging headfirst into the shallow pool, doing herself injuries that will mark them all forever.

"The sins of parents are visited on their children in this superb new novel. . . a stinging social and cultural portrait of a time, a place and a generation whose highflown ideals masked a weak moral fiber.. . . While he is writing about the death of dreams, he provides a satisfying ending that is a healthy antidote to much current fiction in which cynicism triumphs over faith and moral turpitude over justice."

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

The sins of parents are visited on their children in this superb new novel by the author of The Final Club and the nonfiction The Duke of Deception. This is a stinging social and cultural portrait of a time, a place and a generation whose highflown ideals masked a weak moral fiber. The idyllic community of Blackberry Mountain in the New York Adirondacks was founded in the 1960s by charismatic Doc Halliday, who then lured other counterculture refugees from middle-class conformity. Among those who followed him were Ann and Jinx Jenks and their children Maisie and Ted. Jinx and Doc were roommates at Columbia, and three decades later Jinx is still mesmerized by his friend's easy bonhomie and reckless enthusiasm; Jinx is Doc's echo, henchman, puppet. Doc, a merry prankster whose can-do attitude always exceeds his unabashed failure to follow through, retains the Jenks family's slavish devotion and their cooperation in his pie-in-the-sky projects; he serves as avuncular mentor to Maisie and Ted, who adore him. When Maisie-a beautiful, plucky, irreverent 15-year-old-hurls herself from a high rock into a shallow pool one Independence Day, the facade of her family's happiness is irreparably damaged. For, as we gradually learn, the monstrously egotistic Doc is an amoral debaucher of young women, and Maisie is not his only victim. Among the satisfactions of this impeccably fashioned narrative is Wolff's skill at conveying the nuances of small-town life in a purportedly close-knit community in which some people will always be considered outsiders by the natives. Wolff engages thorny issues within a terse but dramatic narrative framework, utilizing a fine-tuned irony in the service of character development. While he is writing about the death of dreams, he provides a satisfying ending that is a healthy antidote to much current fiction in which cynicism triumphs over faith and moral turpitude over justice. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In the 1960s, Ann and Jinx married and moved to an idyllic rural community in upstate New York, a utopian society fueled by faith in the changes that were shaping their future. At age 15, Maisie, their daughter, purposefully dives off a waterfall into a shallow pool, almost killing herself and forever changing the lives of the family, including her younger brother, Ted, who spends his life investigating the reason for Maisie's act. As the truth emerges, family, friends, and the community at large are confronted with a sexual secret involving Maisie, which poisons them all as well as their dreams and ideals. This is Wolff's sixth novel and possibly his best. Exquisitely paced and well timed, the book is propelled to its devastating conclusion by the pressure of something the characters refuse to discuss or acknowledge. The effect is unnerving, subtly ominous, accomplished with Wolff's unique style, which moves effortlessly from toughness to delicate lyricism. Wolff is one of our finest essayists, and this work of fiction explores an unspoken dark link between the personal and the public that undermines and destroys our deepest human hopes. Greg Burkman

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0340637773
• ISBN 13: 9780340637777
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224