Salman Rushdie - The Golden House

Details
Hardback - As new

Rating
3.7/5 Goodreads

Synopsis
Salman Rushdie turns his celebrated literary powers to theAmerican zeitgeist in this sweeping and stylish new novel. In scope and virtuosity, this is The Great Gatsby meets The Bonfire of the Vanities-a contemporary saga peopled by moving characters and driven by a captivating mystery. On the day of Barack Obama's inauguration, an enig- matic billionaire from foreign shores takes up residence in the architectural jewel of "the Gardens," a cloistered com- munity 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 flamboy- ant 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 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 cur- rent 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 for light in our dark new age.

"The Golden House is...a ravishingly well-told, deeply knowledgeable, magnificently insightful, and righteously outraged epic which poses timeless questions about the human condition. Can a person be both good and evil? Is family destiny? Does the past always catch up to us? In a time of polarizing extremes, can we find common ground? Will despots and their supporters be forever with us? Will humankind ever learn? Can story and art enlighten us? As [Salman] Rushdie's blazing tale surges toward its crescendo, life, as it always has, rises stubbornly from the ashes, as does love." - Booklist
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"Where Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities sent up the go-go, me-me Reagan/Bush era, Rushdie's latest novel captures the existential uncertainties of the anxious Obama years.... A sort of Great Gatsby for our time: everyone is implicated, no one is innocent, and no one comes out unscathed." - Kirkus Reviews