Bad Guys: A Novel - Couverture souple

Arthur, Elizabeth

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1969498234 ISBN 13 : 9781969498237

Editeur : Hollow Tree Press, 2026

Synopsis

ON AN ISLAND IN ALASKA, A COLLISION OF INNOCENCE, ABSURDITY, AND WILD GRACE

"It's hard to know which part of this inventive novel to like the most: its characters – the drifters, juvenile delinquents, and generally bewildered outsiders who inhabit its Alaskan setting – or the wilderness itself, the setting these people live in, which seems, in a way, to live in them." ~ Publisher's Weekly

"When the two swift and steady narratives in this heartfelt novel…come together, all hell breaks loose. The tragic-comical result manages…to instill a well-earned and welcome moral – that cooperation and kindness matter more than mere survival." ~ Kirkus Reviews

"Outrageously comic and tenderly moving" ~ Library Journal

"Literally outlandish…inspired tragicomedy" ~ The New Yorker

"[Arthur] expertly yet sensitively charts the rugged terrain her characters inhabit as well as the more fragile contours of their soul….A tour de force."~ Booklist

In Bad Guys, the highly acclaimed author of Island Sojourn and Beyond the Mountain gives us, for the first time, a novel in the comic mode - a tale at once farcical in its invention, lyrical in its vision of the northern wilderness, and fiercely touching in its advocacy of the human spirit.

Played out against the backdrop of the Gulf of Alaska, "where rocks are really rocks," this is a novel full of "bad guys": the inhabitants - and the strange invaders - of Chenega, an island work camp for juvenile delinquents. Among them are the fifteen-year-old half-Aleut camper Harry, polished into a piercing purity of heart by the longtime need to keep his dangerously unbalanced brother from killing; and the intruders: Spike, a graduate of Chenega, educated into muddled vengefulness by prison after prison; his childlike companion, Wesley, a drifter who is guided in his travels by the World Spirit; and Wesley's driven, anorexic daughter Amolia.

As, with wild ineptitude, the three "terrorists" make their way toward Chenega to lay siege to the camp; as Harry scours the dictionary for language ("you noxious miasma, you pusillanimous pismire") that will permit self-expression in the face of the No Swearing rule; and as the on-island director's wistful game plan of teaching the campers Trust metamorphoses into a mass breakout, Bad Guys careens through an absurd and heart-stopping moment of violence to a climax that is a celebration of innocence and courage.

Readers of Island Sojourn and Beyond the Mountain will find the same pleasures here: textured and cadenced prose, resonant imagery, sharply yet lovingly drawn characters, a powerful evocation of the sometimes terrible beauty of the natural world. But in Bad Guys, as never before in her work, Elizabeth Arthur depicts the intricate interweaving of comedy with tragedy that is the core of life. This is a deeply moving and wonderfully funny book

With a Foreword by Elizabeth Arthur's husband, Steven Bauer.

A propos du livre

À propos des auteurs

Elizabeth Arthur is the author of five literary novels (Beyond the Mountain, Bad Guys, Binding Spell, Antarctic Navigation, and Bring Deeps) and two memoirs (Island Sojourn and Looking for the Klondike Stone.) Her books have been published by Harper and Row, Doubleday, Knopf, and Bloomsbury U.K. She has received fellowships and grants from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, the Vermont Council on the Arts, the Ossabaw Island Project, and the Indiana Arts Commission. She twice received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and was the first novelist ever given an Antarctic Artists and Writers Operational Support Grant from the National Science Foundation. Her novel Antarctic Navigation was chosen by the New York Times as a Notable Book. She is the co-author, with her husband Steven Bauer, of the 26 mystery/adventure novels in the New Three Investigators series (2025-2027.)

Steven Bauer is the author of three books for young people, the young adult fantasy Satyrday, the middle grade novel A Cat of a Different Color, and The Strange and Wonderful Tale of Robert McDoodle, a picture book in verse. Bauer's writing has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He has also been given grants and awards from Prairie Schooner, the Ossabaw Island Project, the Massachusetts Arts Council, and the Indiana Arts Commission. He is the co-author, with his wife Elizabeth Arthur, of the 26 mystery/adventure novels in the New Three Investigators series (2025-2027.)

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Hollow Tree Press
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1969498234
• ISBN 13: 9781969498237
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 268
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Manufactured by Amazon on behalf of the author; https://www.amazon.fr/hz/contact-us; ; c/o Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxembourg