20th
A01=Victoria Shorr
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american dream
Author_Victoria Shorr
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DS
Category=FBA
Category=FS
Category=JBSD
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contemporary fiction
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
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eq_modern-contemporary
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family
Language_English
mill towns
new york
novella
ny
nyc
ohio
PA=To order
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
softlaunch
twentieth century
united states
us
woman writer
working class
Product details
- ISBN 9780393882100
- Weight: 302g
- Dimensions: 145 x 218mm
- Publication Date: 17 May 2022
- Publisher: WW Norton & Co
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Victoria Shorr’s remarkable gift for depicting the inner lives of complex characters shines in two powerful explorations of family, ambition, class, and status.
In “Great Uncle Edward,” a family gathers for dinner. At ninety-three, Great Uncle Edward commands the table in his three-piece suit; Cousin Russell attended both Harvard and Yale but is now reduced to selling off the family books; sisters Betty and Molly are caught between ghosts of a storied past and creeping destitution. These lives are signposts along the downward spiral of an old aristocracy. “Cleveland Auto Wrecking” introduces Sam White, an immigrant from eastern Europe. He cannot read but has a gift for math and an instinct for the value of junk. We follow his clan through the Depression to the postwar boom in the West, where their fortunes soar, creating new tests of loyalty.
Taken together, these two novellas might be the reverse images of the American dream in the twentieth century. They ask to what degree, in the face of such powerful forces as love, death, and social constraints, do any of us have control over our own lives.
Victoria Shorr is the author of four works of fiction, including the acclaimed novel The Plum Trees, which was listed as a New York Times Recommended Historical Fiction selection for 2021. She lives in New York.
