And Sons

by GILBERT, DAVID

• ISBN13: 9780812993967
• ISBN10: 0812993969
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-07-23
• Publisher: Random House

Summary

A vibrant and daring feat of fiction for readers of The Emperor's Childrenand Wonder Boys,David Gilbert's & Sonsis the panoramic, deeply affecting story of two interconnected families, an iconic first novel, and the secrets that can cast lifelong shadows. The funeral of Charles Henry Topping on Manhattan's Upper East Side would have been a minor affair (his two-hundred-word obit in The New York Timesnotwithstanding) but for the presence of one particular mourner: the notoriously reclusive author A. N. Dyer, whose novel Ampersandstands as a classic of teenage angst. But as Andrew Newbold Dyer delivers the eulogy for his oldest friend,he suffers a breakdown over the life he's led and the people he's hurt and the novel that will forever endure as his legacy. He must gather his three sons for the first time in many years-before it's too late. So begins a wild, transformative, heartbreaking week, as witnessed by Philip Topping, who, like his late father, finds himself caught up in the swirl of the Dyer family. First there's son Richard, a recovering addict and struggling screenwriter, returning from self-imposed exile with his distinctly Californian wife and kids. In the middle lingers Jamie, settled in Brooklyn after his twenty-year mission of documenting pain and suffering has reached a disturbing and personal low. And last is Andy, the half brother whose birth tore the Dyers apart seventeen years ago, now in New York on spring break, determined to lose his virginity before returning to the prestigious New England boarding school that inspired Ampersand. But only when the real purpose of this reunion comes to light do these sons realize just how much is at stake, not only for their father but for themselves. In this literary masterwork, David Gilbert establishes himself as one of our most original, entertaining, and insightful authors. & Sonsis that rarest of treasures: a startlingly imaginative novel about families and how they define us, and the choices we make when faced with our own mortality. "Gilbert writes in the vein of Vonnegut, Heller and Kesey, updated for the twenty-first century."- Publishers Weekly "A writer of loopy elegance."- The Boston Globe