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Loading... The Lola Quartet (2012)by Emily St. John Mandel
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No current Talk conversations about this book. some trademark mandel wild coincidences and jonathan alkaitis, the madoffesque ponzi scheme guy from the glass hotel gets a mention. no virus though. Emily St. John Mandel’s ability to weave together layers of story and characters really shows through in her 2012 novel, The Lola Quartet. A decade after high school, the members of a jazz band, The Lola Quartet, find themselves in different places in life, but none of them are very good. As the pieces of the puzzle Mandel writes begin to fall into place, the book becomes a bit of a thriller--but not quite. The Lola Quartet is about loneliness and desperation, and Mandel does an excellent job of capturing that noir feeling without making it too depressing. An interesting read for fans of hers looking to read her earlier work. It's the flawed characters I come for, and this book didn't disappoint. There were some unexpected connections to the Glass Hotel, and the themes of making bad investment and getting screwed by the economy reappear. This is the third book by Ms. Mandel that I have read this year and it is another fantastic read. I almost gave it 4 stars just to not give another 5 star review but this book earned the top rating. The titular quartet is a jazz combo formed in a high school in Florida and once again Ms. Mandel masterfully handles timelines, flashbacks, multiple characters, and multiple points of view to weave together an engrossing, at times frustrating, but always intriguing story. Everyone is operating with the knowledge they have, gee just like in real life, and so their ability to make decisions is hampered by incomplete facts. They also are all broken in different ways, hmm real life again, and as they do things to make their situations worse I found myself once again yelling at the book. For the record it did not answer. This is yet another book that puts me in places that I have never been. I had a great family growing up and was supported in all I did. It is heartbreaking to see the consequences of indifferent or destructive parenting rendered in fiction. As much as we might hope for a happy ever after, it doesn't always happen. I love falling into a story like this and these characters will stay with me. Even Gavin, who commits a workplace sin that is unforgivable to me. If you read the book and know me, you will understand. no reviews | add a review
Gavin Sasaki's a promising young journalist in New York City, until he's fired in disgrace following a series of unforgivable lapses in his work. It's early 2009, and the world has gone dark very quickly: the economic collapse has turned an era that magazine headlines once heralded as the second gilded age into something that more closely resembles the Great Depression. The last thing Gavin wants to do is return to his hometown of Sebastian, Florida, but he's drifting toward bankruptcy and is in no position to refuse when he's offered a job by his sister, Eilo, a real estate broker who deals. No library descriptions found. |
LibraryThing Early Reviewers AlumEmily St. John Mandel's book The Lola Quartet was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Popular covers
![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6 — Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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Ultimately, the book is from all of the band members points of view, though Gavin remains the reader's center. The story was really not all that mysterious though it jumps around in time quite a bit, so there is that. But in the end, it is rather hum drum. There is very little redemption. Interesting that the things that are described as beautiful - the suburbs, a casino, malls - are typically though of as crass and ugly. Are the author's descriptions tongue and cheek? The book felt a bit dreamy and disorienting in that respect.
All in all, this was just above OK for me. Not my favorite of hers, but readable and entertaining. Not really a mystery either, so what felt like bait and switch disappointed me. (