Natural Selection - Hardcover

Barthelme, Frederick

3.56

85 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670831131 ISBN 13: 9780670831135

Publisher: Viking, 1990

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Seething with outrage at life's injustice, successful executive Roger suddenly takes to behaving oddly, and eventually opens up a completely unorthodox business at a shopping center

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About the Author:

Frederick Barthelme is the author of eleven books of fiction. He directs the writing program at the University of Mississippi and edits the literary journal Mississippi Review.

From Publishers Weekly:

Barthelme's bracingly cynical novel of marital discord and midlife crisis in a Houston suburb aches with tenderness and hurt. At 40 Peter Wexler feels "stuck in the job, in the life, marking time." He tells his nine-year-old son things like "You're small and sort of dumb." Coming unhinged, Peter separates from his second wife, Lily, an arts administrator who is adept at baby-sitting his depressions. Before Peter reunites with Lily on their kitchen floor, he will do much soul-searching and make love to her strung-out ex-sister-in-law on the front fender of a Chevy. Not bad for a guy who agonizes over whether his marriage was based on "frightened-of-loss longing," a PR hack who concocts tiny wind-up ape toys for "ape concept promotions." The Darwinian overtones of the novel's title take on a dark irony in the shattering, unforeseen finale, whose senseless violence echoes the angst of all the characters.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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