1950s
20th century
A01=Peter De Vries
america
Author_Peter De Vries
autobiographical
belief
calvinist
cancer
Category=FBA
chicago
child
childhood
classic
coming of age
commentary
communication
contemporary
creative writing
cultural
culture
death
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
faith
family
famous person
fiction
grief
growing up
illness
immigrant
immigration
interpersonal
intimacy
loss
midcentury
misfortune
modern
mourning
new
nostalgia
novel
parent
parenthood
relationships
religion
religious
satire
satirical
sick
sick children
social
society
son
tragedy
true story
witticisms
witty
yorker
Product details
- ISBN 9780226143880
- Weight: 340g
- Dimensions: 14 x 20mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jun 2005
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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With a new Foreword by Jeffrey Frank The most poignant of all De Vries's novels, The Blood of the Lamb is also the most autobiographical. It follows the life of Don Wanderhop from his childhood in an immigrant Calvinist family living in Chicago in the 1950s through the loss of a brother, his faith, his wife, and finally his daughter - a tragedy drawn directly from De Vries's own life. Despite its foundation in misfortune, The Blood of the Lamb offers glimpses of the comic sensibility for which De Vries was famous. Engaging directly with the reader in a manner that buttresses the personal intimacy of the story, De Vries writes with a powerful blend of grief, love, wit, and fury.
Peter De Vries (1910-93), the man responsible for contributing to the cultural vernacular such witticisms as "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be" and "Deep down, he's shallow," was, according to Kingsley Amis, "the funniest serious writer to be found on either side of the Atlantic." But De Vries's life and work was informed as much by sorrow as by wit, and that dynamic is nowhere better seen than in his classics Slouching Towards Kalamazoo and The Blood of the Lamb. First published in 1983 and 1961, respectively, these novels reemerge with their sharp satire and biting pain undiluted by time.
