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(The Atom Egoyan adaptation of Banks's brilliant novel The Sweet Hereafter perfectly captures its brooding beauty, and Affliction may be Paul Schrader's finest film since he wrote Taxi Driver.)
Affliction transmutes Banks's painful past into fiction. His divorced protagonist, Wade Whitehouse, 41, is imprisoned by fate in Lawford, New Hampshire, a hell frozen over. He digs wells for chump change, lives in a trailer, drinks, and alienates his daughter by dragging her to a miserable Halloween costume party. In two weeks' time, Wade demolishes his pitiable hopes of family happiness, drawn into a rigorously plausible series of disastrous deaths. In flashbacks to his Dad-abused youth, we see how Wade wound up such a Dostoyevskian clown.
Banks has a mind of winter: when Wade sees his dead parent, the scene unfolds with the cold logic of ice-crystal formation. The story is narrated by Wade's kid brother, the family's sole escapee to college, in a cool, distanced way. Both brothers contain aspects of Banks, but each breaks free of autobiography. This is one haunting novel.
"Everything about Affliction is impressive-- [It] will not let go of you, I swear, until you turn the last page." -Elmore Leonard
"With Affliction, Banks has become the most important white male American on the official literary map, a writer we can actually learn from, whose books help and urge us to change." -The Village Voice
"A powerful and often astonishing novel of which it can safely be said that it should be read over and over for many years to come." -The Kitchener-Waterloo Record
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Book Description FINE IN NEAR FINE D.J. D.J. HAS VERY SLIGHT CORNER WEAR WITH A LIGHT CREASE ON THE FRONT FLAP. AN EXCELLENT COPY. FIRST EDITION. Binding is HARDCOVER. Seller Inventory # 001056