The Emperor's Children
- Avg. Rating:
- Read Review (0)
- Published by: Random House
- eBook Publish Date: July 31, 2006
- Print ISBN: 030726419X
- Filesize: 1.17 MB
-
List Price: $14.95
Save 10.0%
You Pay: $13.46
Our eBook Library Software is required to purchase and download eBooks. Download it here.
Overview
From a writer "of near-miraculous perfection" (The New York Times Book Review) and "a literary intelligence far surpassing most other writers of her generation" (San Francisco Chronicle), The Emperor's Children is a dazzling, masterful novel about the intersections in the lives of three friends, now on the cusp of their thirties, making their way - and not - in New York City.
There is beautiful, sophisticated Marina Thwaite - an "It" girl finishing her first book; the daughter of Murray Thwaite, celebrated intellectual and journalist - and her two closest friends from Brown, Danielle, a quietly appealing television producer, and Julius, a cash-strapped freelance critic. The delicious complications that arise among them become dangerous when Murray's nephew, Frederick "Bootie" Tubb, an idealistic college dropout determined to make his mark, comes to town. As the skies darken, it is Bootie's unexpected decisions - and their stunning, heartbreaking outcome - that will change each of their lives forever.
A richly drawn, brilliantly observed novel of fate and fortune - of innocence and experience, seduction and self-invention; of ambition, including literary ambition; of glamour, disaster, and promise - The Emperor's Children is a tour de force that brings to life a city, a generation, and the way we live in this moment.
Editorial Reviews
Marina Thwaite, Danielle Minkoff and Julian Clarke were buddies at Brown, certain that they would soon do something important in the world. But as all near 30, Danielle is struggling as a TV documentary maker, and Julius is barely surviving financially as a freelance critic. Marina, the startlingly beautiful daughter of celebrated social activist, journalist and hob-nobber Murray Thwaite, is living with her parents on the Upper West Side, unable to finish her book-titled The Emperor's Children Have No Clothes (on how changing fashions in children's clothes mirror changes in society). Two arrivals upset the group stasis: Ludovic, a fiercely ambitious Aussie who woos Marina to gain entr�e into society (meanwhile planning to destroy Murray's reputation), and Murray's nephew, Frederick "Bootie" Tubb, an immature, idealistic college dropout and autodidact who is determined to live the life of a New York intellectual. The group orbits around the post-September 11 city with disconcerting entitlement-and around Murray, who is, in a sense, the emperor. Messud, in her fourth novel, remains wickedly observant of pretensions-intellectual, sexual, class and gender. Her writing is so fluid, and her plot so cleverly constructed, that events seem inevitable, yet the narrative is ultimately surprising and masterful as a contemporary comedy of manners. 100,00 announced first printing; author tour. (Sept. 4) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.
Author Information
Bio of Claire Messud
Claire Messud ' s first novel, When the World Was Steady, and her book of novellas, The Hunters, were finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award; her second novel, The Last Life, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year and an Editor ' s Choice at The Village Voice. All three books were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Radcliffe Fellowship, and is the current recipient of the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, with her husband and children.
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews available at this time. To add your review, Register or Sign In to your account using our free eBook Library Software.
Additional Info
Imprint
Random House
Filesize
1.17 MB
Number of Pages
448
eBook ISBN
9780307266019
Awards
- Commonwealth Writers Prize
- Library Journal Best Books of the Year
- Man Booker Prize for Fiction
- New York Times Notable Books of the Year
Excerpt from: The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
Our Chef Is Very Famous in London
Darlings! Welcome! And you must be Danielle " Sleek and small, her wide eyes rendered enormous by kohl, Lucy Leverett, in spite of her resemblance to a baby seal, rasped impressively. Her dangling fan earrings clanked at her neck as she leaned in to kiss each of them, Danielle too, and although she held her cigarette, in its mother-of-pearl holder, at arm's length, its smoke wafted between them and brought tears to Danielle's eyes.
Danielle didn't wipe them, for fear of disturbing her makeup. Having spent half an hour putting on her face in front of the grainy mirror of Moira and John's bathroom, ogling her imperfections and applying vigorous remedial spackle - beneath which her weary, olive-shaped eyes were pouched by bluish bags, the curves of her nostrils oddly red, and her high forehead peeling - she had no intention of revealing to strangers the disintegration beneath her paint.
"Come in, darlings, come in." Lucy moved behind them and herded the trio toward the party. The Leveretts' living room was painted a deep purple - aubergine, in local parlance - and its windows were draped with velvet. From the ceiling hung a brutal wrought iron chandelier, like something salvaged from a medieval castle. Three men loitered by the bay window, talking to one another while staring out at the street, their glasses of red wine luminous in the reflected evening light. A long, plump, pillowed sofa stretched the length of one wall, and upon it four women were disposed like odalisques in a harem. Two occupied opposite ends of the divan, their legs tucked under, their extended arms caressing the cushions, while between them one rested her head upon another's lap, and smiling, eyes closed, whispered to the ceiling while her friend stroked her abundant hair. The whole effect was, for Danielle, faintly cloudy, as if she had walked into someone else's dream. She kept feeling this, in Sydney, so far from home: she couldn't quite say it wasn't real, but it certainly wasn't her reality.
"Rog Rog, more wine!" Lucy called to the innards of the house, then turned again to her guests, a proprietorial arm on Danielle's bicep. "Red or white He's probably even got pink, if you're after it. Can't bear it myself - so California." She grinned, and from her crows' feet, Danielle knew she was forty, or almost.
Two men bearing bottles emerged from the candlelit gloom of the dining room, both slender, both at first glance slightly fey. Danielle took the imposing one in front, in a pressed lavender shirt and with, above hooded eyes, a high, smooth Nabokovian brow, to be her host. She extended a hand. "I'm Danielle." His fingers were elegant, and his palm, when it pressed hers, was cool.
