Desperate Characters A Novel

<p><br/> <b>One of <br/> <i>The Atlantic</i>'s Great American Novels</b><br/> </p><br/> <p><br/> <b>One of the <br/> <i>New York Times</i>' 25 Most Significant New York City Novels From the Last 100 Years<br/> <br/><br/> "A towering landmark of postwar Realism…A sustained work of prose so lucid and fine it seems less written than carved." —David Foster Wallace</b><br/> </p><br/> <p>Otto and Sophie Bentwood live in a changing neighborhood in Brooklyn. Their stainless-steel kitchen is newly installed, and their Mercedes is parked curbside. After Sophie is bitten on the hand while trying to feed a stray, perhaps rabies-infected cat, a series of small and ominous disasters begin to plague the Bentwoods' lives, revealing the fault lines and fractures in a marriage—and a society—wrenching itself apart.</p><br/> <p>First published in 1970 to wide acclaim, <br/> <i>Desperate Characters</i> stands as one of the most dazzling and rigorous examples of the storyteller's craft in postwar American literature — a novel that, according to Irving Howe, ranks with "<br/> <i>Billy Budd, The Great Gatsby, Miss Lonelyhearts</i>, and <br/> <i>Seize the Day</i>."</p>