The Unfortunate Importance Of Beauty - Hardcover

Filipacchi, Amanda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1410480623 ISBN 13: 9781410480620

Publisher: Thorndike Press, 2015

Synopsis

“Filipacchi’s book [has] a philosophical heft and prods us to examine our own prejudices.... Funny, surreal, absurd, and charmingly preposterous.... Filipacchi’s characters never question the weirdness around them but meet it with a delightful, practical ingenuity.” —The New York Times Book Review

“[A] sure comic touch... smart and sweet... a tribute to the pleasures of friendship." —The New Yorker

“Readers, who'd like to spend a little time at the corner where a brisker Haruki Murakami meets a drier ‘30 Rock’ would do well to seek out Filipacchi’s radiantly intelligent and very funny novel.” —San Francisco Chronicle

A magical and comedic take on modern love, the power of friendship, and the allure of disguise.

In the heart of New York City, a group of artistic friends struggles with society's standards of beauty. At the center are Barb and Lily, two women at opposite ends of the beauty spectrum, but with the same problem: each fears she will never find a love that can overcome her looks. Barb, a stunningly beautiful costume designer, makes herself ugly in hopes of finding true love. Meanwhile, her friend Lily, a brilliantly talented but plain-looking musician, goes to fantastic lengths to attract the man who has rejected her—with results that are as touching as they are transformative.

To complicate matters, Barb and Lily discover that they may have a murderer in their midst, that Barb’s calm disposition is more dangerously provocative than her beauty ever was, and that Lily's musical talents are more powerful than anyone could have imagined. Part literary whodunit, part surrealist farce, The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty serves as a smart, modern-day fairy tale. With biting wit and offbeat charm, Amanda Filipacchi illuminates the labyrinthine relationship between beauty, desire, and identity, asking at every turn: what does it truly mean to allow oneself to be seen?

About this title

About the Author

Amanda Filipacchi is the author of three previous novels: Nude Men, Vapor, and Love Creeps. Her fiction has appeared in Best American Humor and elsewhere. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic. She earned an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia University. She lives in New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thorndike Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1410480623
• ISBN 13: 9781410480620
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 417