Fool: A Novel - Hardcover

Dillen, Frederick G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1565122348 ISBN 13: 9781565122345

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 1999

Synopsis

Barnaby Griswold makes a terrific living from foolishness. A New York investments player who does his research eating and drinking, a joyously well-to-do man with absurd instincts for the next deal, Barnaby senses possibility even in two Oklahoma car dealers across a dining room at La Cote. He joins those boys for a carousing flight to Oklahoma City, and there divines the imminent collapse of the oil boom and makes the happiest amount of money.

Then it all turns bad, and everything Barnaby has ever known is taken away from him. Not just his wife and daughters. Not just livelihood and connections and lunches at La Cote. No-Barnaby, without a nickel, is banished even from his boyhood summer home, the very last roof over his head.

He has nowhere to go but Oklahoma City once more, to take care of his stroke-addled ex-mother-in-law. And while carrying out those duties, God help him, he must try to win his way back to money, the East Coast, and redemption. How does Barnaby-a profoundly uncoordinated man, a spiritual adolescent, a soul with no history of success in love-ever hope to get back? As an athlete, a pilgrim, and a lover.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Early praise for FOOL:

"This novel brims with love of the human soul's possibilities for hope and joy and love and resilience and failure. Dillen writes with the excitement and curiosity of a child and the wisdom and talent of a master. Fool is romantic, funny, sad, sometimes violent, and absolutely serious. Dillen is a unique writer, you won't read anyone else like him."--Andre Dubus

"As compelling as a romping game of tennis."--Booklist

An "assured and sophisticated novel."--Publishers Weekly

"Dillen's prose is astonishing."--Library Journal

Praise for Frederick G. Dillen's Hero:

"Not just poignant and charming but impressively realized as well."--The Times Literary Supplement

"Completely engrossing."--The Boston Globe

"Brilliant."--The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

"In a busy field of excellent first novels, any number of them first-rate by all the usual standards, Frederick G. Dillen's Hero stand out...this small and powerful story is also strangely beautiful and deeply touching. Hero is an experience, real enough to become a memory."--Dictionary of Literary Biography on Awarding Hero its First-Novel Prize

From the Inside Flap

Barnaby Griswold has never been much of an athlete, or even very sportsmanlike; he tends to cheat when the match is on the line. He's not much of a fighter either, more likely to throw a rock than an honest punch.

His father had hoped Barnaby might lead a life of dim propriety. But instead Barnaby has grown into his father's horror: a great melon of impropriety, a fluffmeister, an investments player with unbelievably priceless instincts for the next deal.

Then he loses everything. Not just his wife and daughters. Not just his livelihood and connections and lunches at La Cote. Barnaby, without a nickel, is banished even from his boyhood summer home, the very last roof over his head.

Now, divorced, deserted, flat broke, Barnaby has to find a way to repair his life.

Can a fool--a clumsy, self-absorbed, insensitive, money-driven fool--become a hero, the kind of hero that makes us stand up and cheer? In a word, yes.

This is a funny, irresistible, resonant novel that, in Andre Dubus's words, "brims with love."

About this edition

• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1565122348
• ISBN 13: 9781565122345
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 302