Seven Types of Ambiguity - Softcover

Elliot-perlman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571207170 ISBN 13: 9780571207176

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2004

Synopsis

At once a psychological thriller and a social critique, Seven Types of Ambiguity is a novel of obsessive love in an age of obsessive materialism. Following years of unrequited love, an out-of-work schoolteacher decides to take matters into his own hands, triggering a chain of events no one could have anticipated. This is a story of impulse and paralysis, of empty marriages, lovers and a small boy, gambling and the market, of adult children and their parents, of poetry and prostitution, psychiatry and the law. Published to huge acclaim in the author's native Australia, Seven Types of Ambiguity was hailed as 'a tour de force' (The Age) and described as 'Perlman's achingly humane, richly layered and seamlessly constructed masterpiece' (Canberra Times).

About this title

About the Author

Elliot Perlmanis the acclaimed author of a collection of short stories and two novels,Three Dollars, the film adaptation of which was released in 2005, andSeven Types of Ambiguity, which was a 'New York Times Notable Book' and a national bestseller in France, where it was described 'one of the best novels of recent years, a complete success'(Le Monde). A barrister, he lived in New York for many years and currently lives in Melbourne.

From Publishers Weekly

By copping the title of William Empson's classic of literary criticism, Australian writer Perlman (Three Dollars) sets a high bar for himself, but he justifies his theft with a relentlessly driven story, told from seven perspectives, about the effects of the brief abduction of six-year-old Sam Geraghty by Simon Heywood, his mother Anna's ex-boyfriend. Charismatic, unemployed Simon is still obsessed with Anna nine years after their breakup—to the dismay of his present lover, Angelique, a prostitute. Anna's stockbroker husband, Joe, is one of Angelique's regulars, which feeds Simon's flame. When Angelique turns Simon in to the cops, he claims he had permission to pick Sam up; his fate hinges on whether Anna will back up his lie. Most of the perspectives are linked to Simon's shrink, Alex Klima, who writes to Anna and counsels Simon, Angelique and Joe's co-worker, Dennis. The most successful voices belong to Joe, who's spent his career on the edge of panic, and Dennis, whose bitter rants provide a corrective to Klima's unctuous psychological omniscience. Perlman, a lawyer, aims for a literary legal novel—think Grisham by way of Franzen—and the ambition is admirable though the product somewhat uneven. Simon's obsessions, his self-righteousness and his psychological blackmail, give him a perhaps unintended creepiness, and the novel, as big and juicy as it is, may not offer sufficient closure.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0571207170
• ISBN 13: 9780571207176
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1