A Weekend in New York

By Benjamin Markovits

Book Overview

"In tender, compassionate prose and a deftly compressed time-scheme, Markovits glints through desire, ennui, misunderstanding, and love, illuminating his family so they collectively glow like a human panorama."--Jonathan Lethem

"Deliciously poised, a] hugely enjoyable and unashamedly old-fashioned novel."--Guardian

Paul Essinger is a mid-ranking tennis professional on the ATP tour. His girlfriend Dana is an ex-model and photographer, and the mother of their two-year-old son, Cal. Together they form a tableau of the contented upper-middle-class New York family. But summer storms are blowing through Manhattan, and Paul's parents have come to stay in the build-up to the US Open. Over the course of the weekend, several generations of domestic tension are brought to boiling point . . .

What does it mean to be a family? To be an individual? And how do we deal with the responsibilities these roles impose upon us? A Weekend In New York intertwines the politics of the household and the state to forge a luminous national portrait on a deceptively local scale. Recalling some of America's most celebrated novelists - this is John Updike's Rabbit for a new generation - Benjamin Markovits' writing reminds us of the heights that social realism can reach.

Tolstoy claimed: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". But what if the happy families are actually the most unusual of all?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0571350089
• ISBN13: 9780571350087
• Release Date: February 2019
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.8"