TURN OF THE CENTURY - Hardcover

Andersen, Kurt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 074727469X ISBN 13: 9780747274698

Publisher: Random House, 1999

Synopsis

The millennium is here. BarbieWorld has opened in Vegas. Charles Manson's parole hearing is on live TV. And George and Lizzie are a Manhattan power couple with three kids in private school and take-out from Hiroshima Boy waiting at the door. Lizzie owns a software start-up. George is a TV producer. With cell phones tickling their thighs and gossip buzzing in their ears, their future couldn't be brighter. Until, that is, Lizzie cuts a deal with George's boss and gets an office twenty-one floors above her husband's... Until all the glitter and the hype threaten to destroy George's and Lizzie's sanity and their marriage... Until the only thing that can save them is a little understanding--at a time when everyone is talking but no one can hear a thing. In his brash, brilliant first novel, media insider Kurt Andersen casts a penetrating eye on our giddy, media-obsessed era. With a keen sense of irony and a storyteller's grace, the co-founder of Spy magazine weaves a tale that is at once a biting satire of America in the near future and a wickedly incisive portrait of marriage, family, love, and friendship. A crackling, cyber-charged joyride through our millennium, Turn of the Century is pure, eye-popping entertainment.

About this title

About the Author:

Kurt Andersen writes for THE NEW YORKER. He co-founded and edited SPYmagazine, America's equivalent of PRIVATE EYE and was a regular contributor to TIME MAGAZINE. He has written and produced tv, including HOW TO BE SPECIAL, starring Jerry Seinfeld.

Review:

PLAYBOY: 'An astute and irreverent observer of modern culture...Andersen's narrative is a hyperkinetic reportage that leaves no detail unnoted. Andersen knows his stuff - corporate takeovers, computer hackers, the stock market, media ratings, unthinkable menu items at fusion restaurants...' BOOKLIST: 'The dilemmas, personal and professional, that George and Lizzie confront and cope with - and which threaten to overwhelm them - during the course of the year all reflect, in big, bold ways, how most of us lead our lives these days: at the mercy of too much technology, too much information, too much time spent on meaningless tasks... Andersen has certainly caught the dreambeat of our times' PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY: 'A blockbuster fiction debut...brilliantly conceived, keenly incisive...mischievoutsly tweaks current attitudes regarding marriage, friendship, the mass media, Wall Street and the computer industry, just to name a handful of his numerous targets. With ferocious energy he also captures the essence of New York, Las Vegas, LA and Seattle... The convoluted plot boldly defies summary but it ultimately achieves a mad convergence highlighted by an intricate, hilarious plan to virtually kill Bill Gates. Andersen employs a bitingly topical humour that is always exaggerated, yet seldom actually seems inconceivable...Andersen brilliantly sustains the comic page throughout the lengthy narrative' KIRKUS REVIEWS: 'If you're not computer-literate you may miss some of the jokes but will nevertheless enjoy this gargantuan Tom Wolfeian satire on millennial hucksterism...neither Al Gore and Bill Gates will approve. The rest of us will be, as they say, richly entertained' NEW YORK TIMES (Po Bronson) 'He's managed to write a book portraying our fragmented lives that is not in itself fragmented. In other words, he's shown that the novel is flexible enough to encompass the chattering of its electronic cousins, and, in the end, to hush them... The limitation of a Zeitgeist novel is that an accurate portrait of today can quickly feel dated...yet he's [Andersen] infused it with so much inventive imagination that it transcends all that. This book's vision of next year will last a good five to seven years... At one point I didn't want the novel ever to end...' TIME MAGAZINE 'In Andersen's take on Tomorrowland, nearly every page is alive with wit, observation and sparks of inspired nastiness... It's a joy to watch him work, richocheting off everything putrid and tinny in our culture... Whatever you call the thing after post-modern, TURN OF THE CENTURY is it...it sure is fun to read' WALL ST JOURNAL: Can a book destined for every beach blanket and nightstand in the Hamptons really be any good? Can a novel that refers to Prada, Ferragamo and Manolo Blahnik be admitted (without at least a period of quarantine) into the nation of literature? And can anyone really have the temerity to believe that American culture at the turn of the century isn't beyond parody? The answer to all these questions appears to be yes, judging by the evidence of Kurt Andersen's elegant and relentless ficitonal sendup of the way we live now. The plot defies easy synopsis (there's a reason this novel is 659 pages long) but revolves around a delicious conceit... It's a savagely subversive notion...Mere synopsis doesn't begin to convey the pleasures of this smart, funny and excrutiatingly deft portrait of our age. The overwhelming wackiness of public life in this country would seem to render satire gratuitous, yet a few novelists remain unintimidated. Tom Wolfe, Martin Amis and Scott Spencer, to name just three, have cut our media-besotted social fabric to ribbons in their fiction, and now Mr Andersen has stepped up to shred the whole mess into a find, powdery dust. (TURN OF THE CENTURY invites comparision to BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES but Mr Andersen writes with more finesse.) ...offers a throughly affecting portrait of a marriage... I would be hard-pressed to name a novel that doPLAYBOY: 'An astute and irreverent observer of modern culture...Andersen's narrative is a hyperkinetic reportage that leaves no detail unnoted. Andersen knows his stuff - corporate takeovers, computer hackers, the stock market, media ratings, unthinkable menu items at fusion restaurants...' BOOKLIST: 'The dilemmas, personal and professional, that George and Lizzie confront and cope with - and which threaten to overwhelm them - during the course of the year all reflect, in big, bold ways, how most of us lead our lives these days: at the mercy of too much technology, too much information, too much time spent on meaningless tasks... Andersen has certainly caught the dreambeat of our times' PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY: 'A blockbuster fiction debut...brilliantly conceived, keenly incisive...mischievoutsly tweaks current attitudes regarding marriage, friendship, the mass media, Wall Street and the computer industry, just to name a handful of his numerous targets. With ferocious energy he also captures the essence of New York, Las Vegas, LA and Seattle... The convoluted plot boldly defies summary but it ultimately achieves a mad convergence highlighted by an intricate, hilarious plan to virtually kill Bill Gates. Andersen employs a bitingly topical humour that is always exaggerated, yet seldom actually seems inconceivable...Andersen brilliantly sustains the comic page throughout the lengthy narrative' KIRKUS REVIEWS: 'If you're not computer-literate you may miss some of the jokes but will nevertheless enjoy this gargantuan Tom Wolfeian satire on millennial hucksterism...neither Al Gore and Bill Gates will approve. The rest of us will be, as they say, richly entertained' NEW YORK TIMES (Po Bronson) 'He's managed to write a book portraying our fragmented lives that is not in itself fragmented. In other words, he's shown that the novel is flexible enough to encompass the chattering of its electronic cousins, and, in the end, to hush them... The limitation of a Zeitgeist novel is that an accurate portrait of today can quickly feel dated...yet he's [Andersen] infused it with so much inventive imagination that it transcends all that. This book's vision of next year will last a good five to seven years... At one point I didn't want the novel ever to end...' TIME MAGAZINE 'In Andersen's take on Tomorrowland, nearly every page is alive with wit, observation and sparks of inspired nastiness... It's a joy to watch him work, richocheting off everything putrid and tinny in our culture... Whatever you call the thing after post-modern, TURN OF THE CENTURY is it...it sure is fun to read' WALL ST JOURNAL: Can a book destined for every beach blanket and nightstand in the Hamptons really be any good? 'An astute and irreverent observer of modern culture...Andersen's narrative is a hyperkinetic reportage that leaves no detail unnoted. Andersen knows his stuff - corporate takeovers, computer hackers, the stock market, media ratings, unthinkable menu items at fusion restaurants...' -- PLAYBOY 'The dilemmas, personal and professional, that George and Lizzie confront and cope with - and which threaten to overwhelm them - during the course of the year all reflect, in big, bold ways, how most of us lead our lives these days: at the mercy of too much technology, too much information, too much time spent on meaningless tasks... Andersen has certainly caught the dreambeat of our times' -- BOOKLIST 'A blockbuster fiction debut...brilliantly conceived, keenly incisive...mischievoutsly tweaks current attitudes regarding marriage, friendship, the mass media, Wall Street and the computer industry, just to name a handful of his numerous targets. With ferocious energy he also captures the essence of New York, Las Vegas, LA and Seattle... The convoluted plot boldly defies summary but it ultimately achieves a mad convergence highlighted by an intricate, hilarious plan to virtually kill Bill Gates. Andersen employs a bitingly topical humour that is always exaggerated, yet seldom actually seems inconceivable...Andersen brilliantly sustains the comic page throughout the lengthy narrative' -- PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY 'If you're not computer-literate you may miss some of the jokes but will nevertheless enjoy this gargantuan Tom Wolfeian satire on millennial hucksterism...neither Al Gore and Bill Gates will approve. The rest of us will be, as they say, richly entertained' -- KIRKUS REVIEWS 'He's managed to write a book portraying our fragmented lives that is not in itself fragmented. In other words, he's shown that the novel is flexible enough to encompass the chattering of its electronic cousins, and, in the end, to hush them... The limitation of a Zeitgeist novel is that an accurate portrait of today can quickly feel dated...yet he's [Andersen] infused it with so much inventive imagination that it transcends all that. This book's vision of next year will last a good five to seven years... At one point I didn't want the novel ever to end...' -- NEW YORK TIMES (Po Bronson) 'In Andersen's take on Tomorrowland, nearly every page is alive with wit, observation and sparks of inspired nastiness... It's a joy to watch him work, richocheting off everything putrid and tinny in our culture... Whatever you call the thing after post-modern, TURN OF THE CENTURY is it...it sure is fun to read' -- TIME MAGAZINE 'the verbal cleverness of this book will surely become a reference point for unborn historians of the fin de siecle' -- TELEGRAPH 'Extraordinary... Nicholson Baker on additives...an exceptional book' -- Justin Cartwright, Independent on Sunday 'The great millennial read' -- Saturday Telegraph

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 074727469X
• ISBN 13: 9780747274698
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 640