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Loading... Half the Kingdomby Lore Segal
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. It was a quick enough read that I didn't mind finishing it, but I found this novel oddly cold and devoid of underlying emotion. ( ) Could be Spoilers. I liked this. It is pretty weird & I'm not sure I understood the point. There is no conclusion. What was happening? How was it happening? She writes pretty dispassionately so it isn't as totally depressing as it might be. And we're all nuts anyway. I guess I liked the pieces but it didn't feel like it really added up to a book. no reviews | add a review
"A brilliant dark comedy about life, death and growing old in America told with Segal's characteristic humor, crystalline style and deadpan delivery--and her hilarious sense of the absurd. Half the Kingdom is a brilliant dark comedy about life, death and growing old in post-9/11 America--a place where terrorist paranoia and end-of-the-world hysteria masks deeper fears about mortality; a place where the broken medical system leads one character to quip, "Kafka wrote slice-of-life fiction." Characters from Segal's earlier novels are part of the cast whose lives intersect at Manhattan's Cedars of Lebanon emergency room--where doctors have noticed a marked up-tick in Alzheimer victims. People who seemed perfectly lucid just a day earlier exhibit signs of advanced dementia. Is it just normal aging or a coincidence? Is it an epidemic, or a secret terrorist plot? As profoundly moving as Joan Didion's latest non-fiction, and as thoughtful and charming as Diana Athill, Segal's crystalline writing and deep appreciation of the absurd make this most tragic and hilarious novel a joy for all to read"-- No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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