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The Golden House: A Novel (2017)

by Salman Rushdie

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
8165126,674 (3.65)39
Fiction. Literature. HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ? A modern American epic set against the panorama of contemporary politics and culture??a hurtling, page-turning mystery that is equal parts The Great Gatsby and The Bonfire of the Vanities
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR ? PBS ? HARPER??S BAZAAR ? ESQUIRE ? FINANCIAL TIMES ? THE TIMES OF INDIA
On the day of Barack Obama??s inauguration, an enigmatic billionaire from foreign shores takes up residence in the architectural jewel of ??the Gardens,? a cloistered community in New York??s Greenwich Village. The neighborhood is a bubble within a bubble, and the residents are immediately intrigued by the eccentric newcomer and his family. Along with his improbable name, untraceable accent, and unmistakable whiff of danger, Nero Golden has brought along his three adult sons: agoraphobic, alcoholic Petya, a brilliant recluse with a tortured mind; Apu, the flamboyant artist, sexually and spiritually omnivorous, famous on twenty blocks; and D, at twenty-two the baby of the family, harboring an explosive secret even from himself. There is no mother, no wife; at least not until Vasilisa, a sleek Russian expat, snags the septuagenarian Nero, becoming the queen to his king??a queen in want of an heir.
Our guide to the Goldens?? world is their neighbor René, an ambitious young filmmaker. Researching a movie about the Goldens, he ingratiates himself into their household. Seduced by their mystique, he is inevitably implicated in their quarrels, their infidelities, and, indeed, their crimes. Meanwhile, like a bad joke, a certain comic-book villain embarks upon a crass presidential run that turns New York upside-down.
Set against the strange and exuberant backdrop of current American culture and politics, The Golden House also marks Salman Rushdie??s triumphant and exciting return to realism. The result is a modern epic of love and terrorism, loss and reinvention??a powerful, timely story told with the daring and panache that make Salman Rushdie a force of light in our dark new age.
Praise for The Golden House

??[A] modern masterpiece . . . telling a story full of wonder and leaving you marveling at how it ever came out of the author??s head.???Associated Press
??Wildly satiric and yet piercingly real . . . If F. Scott Fitzgerald, Homer, Euripides, and Shakespeare collaborated on a contemporary fall-of-an-empire epic set in New York City, the result would be The Golden House.???Poets & Writers
??A tonic addition to American??no, world!??literature . . . a Greek tragedy with In
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» See also 39 mentions

English (48)  Catalan (2)  German (1)  All languages (51)
Showing 1-5 of 48 (next | show all)
This book takes on the question, how did the US get to a point where a Trump presidency was possible? Read on its own this book follows a family that immigrates from India to live in wealth and luxury in the US, growing in power but also developing unwholesome patterns that eventually prove to be disastrous for the family and their associates. ( )
  JBarringer | Dec 15, 2023 |
I don't know anyone else who has read all the way through a Rushdie book; they say they are too difficult. I don't get that, especially from people who can read classic Russian literature. Still, he does challenge on several levels. And this book shows the skill of a good writer - there are few who can write a book with nothing but self-centered, narcissistic characters and manage to keep you interested to the last page. In fact, most can't keep you interested past the first page. Rushdie can, and does again here, weaving contemporary events into a fictional narrative of people so lost in themselves they end up losing everyone else. ( )
  Devil_llama | Jun 24, 2023 |
This was my first experience with Salman Rushdie, so I don't know how typical it is, as far as the language and prose style. There were many things to like in this story, not least the mystery of its realness or fictionality. The narrator, Rene, is a filmmaker, whose interest -- obsession, really -- is Nero Golden, a wealthy immigrant, and his sons. The Roman names invoke a sense of epic, reinforced by their rarefied position of extreme privilege, albeit shaded in some dodgy business in their country of origin. But despite their mythical names, these men are merely human, and they are subject to the pitfalls of life just like every other mortal man. What kept me interested, beyond the sweeping scope of the story, was not knowing how much was real, and how much was part of the story Rene was weaving. He admits several times that some details are embellished, in the name of drama, and at times it seems he can't actually remember which parts have really happened and which parts he has made up. In the end the main theme is the love and devotion of fathers to sons, and it all winds up feeling a bit prosaic, not quite living up to its promise or my expectations. ( )
  karenchase | Jun 14, 2023 |
First edition. First printing. Signed by the author on the title page. Signed at the Toronto Reference Library on September 21, 2017.
  seaward | May 16, 2023 |
I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book pre-publication.

Salman Rushdie's setting for The Golden House is somewhat unexpected; a quiet garden bounded by mansions in the toniest part of Manhattan. Rene, the son of immigrant professors living on the Garden, is fascinated by his mysterious neighbours, the Goldens. Nero Golden, a mysterious patriarch from another country, lives there with his sons: autistic Petya, artistic Apu and gender-confused D. As Rene gets to know the Goldens he becomes obsessed with making a film about their story, a film hampered by the fact that he does not yet know where this story leads.

The fragile tensions in the Golden house approach breaking point when Vasilisa, a Russian chancer, sweeps Nero off his feet and inveigles herself into the house as his mistress. The sons' worst fears about Vasilisa are confirmed, but they are unable to stop her. Things move from bad to worse, and the Golden house becomes the scene of an unfolding grand family tragedy.

With an outsider's view of tragedy among the ultra-rich, this book reminded me of The Great Gatsby, a novel which Rushdie alludes to regularly here. There are a host of other allusions here, notably comparing the 2016 Presidential election to a cartoon stoush between The Joker and Bat-Girl. Rushdie has some trenchant things to say about what that election means.

I initially thought that an upper Manhattan setting was not what I expected from Rushdie, but this scenario gives him the opportunity to make some observations about life in exile, even in the midst of comfort, that are clearly informed by his own experience. ( )
  gjky | Apr 9, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 48 (next | show all)
Salman Rushdie De familie Golden beschrijft de ondergang van een rijke familie in het huidige Amerikaanse tijdsgewricht. Pater familias en multi-miljonair Nero Golden is met zijn drie zoon neergestreken in New York. Ze zijn India, min of meer, ontvlucht nadat zijn vrouw bij een terroristische aanslag in een hotel in Mumbai, India is vermoord. Onder schuilnamen hebben ze zich gevestigd in een groot huis in New York…lees verder >
 
Whether by design, chance, or oracular divination, Salman Rushdie has managed, within a year of the 2016 election, to publish the first novel of the Trumpian Era. On purely technical merits this is an astounding achievement, the literary equivalent of Katie Ledecky lapping the Olympic field in the 1500-meter freestyle. The publishing industry still operates at an aristocratic pace; Egypt built the new Suez Canal in less time than it typically takes to convert a finished manuscript into a hardcover. As a point of comparison, the first novel to appear about September 11, Windows on the World, by the French author Frédéric Beigbeder, was not published until August 2003. Yet less than eight months into the administration, Rushdie has produced a novel that, if not explicitly about the president, is tinged a toxic shade of orange.
 

» Add other authors

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Salman Rushdieprimary authorall editionscalculated
Adam, VikasNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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Epigraph
Give me a copper penny and I'll tell you a golden story. -The cry of street-corner storytellers in ancient Rome, quoted by Pliny
Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road to the future: but we go round, or scramble over obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen. -D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover
La vie a beaucoup plus d'imagination que nous. -Francois Truffant
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On the day of the new president's inauguration, when we worried that he might be murdered as he walked hand in hand with his exceptional wife among the cheering crowds, and when so many of us were close to economic ruin in the aftermath of the bursting of the mortgage bubble, and when Isis was still an Egyptian mother-goddess, an uncrowned seventy-something king from a faraway country arrived in New York City with his three motherless sons to take possession of the palace of his exile, behaving as if nothing was wrong with the country or the world or his own story. -Part I
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Fiction. Literature. HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ? A modern American epic set against the panorama of contemporary politics and culture??a hurtling, page-turning mystery that is equal parts The Great Gatsby and The Bonfire of the Vanities
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR ? PBS ? HARPER??S BAZAAR ? ESQUIRE ? FINANCIAL TIMES ? THE TIMES OF INDIA
On the day of Barack Obama??s inauguration, an enigmatic billionaire from foreign shores takes up residence in the architectural jewel of ??the Gardens,? a cloistered community in New York??s Greenwich Village. The neighborhood is a bubble within a bubble, and the residents are immediately intrigued by the eccentric newcomer and his family. Along with his improbable name, untraceable accent, and unmistakable whiff of danger, Nero Golden has brought along his three adult sons: agoraphobic, alcoholic Petya, a brilliant recluse with a tortured mind; Apu, the flamboyant artist, sexually and spiritually omnivorous, famous on twenty blocks; and D, at twenty-two the baby of the family, harboring an explosive secret even from himself. There is no mother, no wife; at least not until Vasilisa, a sleek Russian expat, snags the septuagenarian Nero, becoming the queen to his king??a queen in want of an heir.
Our guide to the Goldens?? world is their neighbor René, an ambitious young filmmaker. Researching a movie about the Goldens, he ingratiates himself into their household. Seduced by their mystique, he is inevitably implicated in their quarrels, their infidelities, and, indeed, their crimes. Meanwhile, like a bad joke, a certain comic-book villain embarks upon a crass presidential run that turns New York upside-down.
Set against the strange and exuberant backdrop of current American culture and politics, The Golden House also marks Salman Rushdie??s triumphant and exciting return to realism. The result is a modern epic of love and terrorism, loss and reinvention??a powerful, timely story told with the daring and panache that make Salman Rushdie a force of light in our dark new age.
Praise for The Golden House

??[A] modern masterpiece . . . telling a story full of wonder and leaving you marveling at how it ever came out of the author??s head.???Associated Press
??Wildly satiric and yet piercingly real . . . If F. Scott Fitzgerald, Homer, Euripides, and Shakespeare collaborated on a contemporary fall-of-an-empire epic set in New York City, the result would be The Golden House.???Poets & Writers
??A tonic addition to American??no, world!??literature . . . a Greek tragedy with In

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