Name: The Biology of Luck
Author: Jacob M. Appel (Author)
ISBN: 9780975374689

The Biology of Luck book cover

The Biology of Luck

Author(s): Jacob M. Appel (Author)

Publisher: Elephant Rock Books
Publication Date: October 7, 2013
Language: English
Print length: 220 pages
ISBN-10: 0975374680
ISBN-13: 9780975374689

Book Description

Odd-job queen Starshine Hart is about to go on somebody else’s perfect date. At 29, the usually carefree Starshine has realized that it is easier to start sleeping with a man than to stop. Her lovers include one of the last underground members of the Weathermen and the dilettante heir to a lawn chair magnate. Both men have staked their romantic future on her. Her only respite is her impending dinner with the nonthreatening but unattractive tour guide Larry Bloom. But Larry, too, has a stake in her future. He has written a book about their impending dinner in which he fantasizes about Starshine’s life on the day he wins her heart. Juxtaposing moments from Larry’s guided tour of New York City on the June day of his “dream date” with excerpts from the novel in which he imagines Starshine’s concurrent escapades, this inventive structure weaves a highly imaginative love story across all five boroughs. Provocative, funny, and keenly observed, an imagined pilgrimage through the underbelly of Gotham becomes a bold new voice in contemporary American fiction.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Appel—a New York sightseeing guide, psychiatrist, bioethicist, and prolific, prizewinning playwright and short story writer—offers a nimbly satiric variation on Joyce’s Ulysses in this tale of one summer day in the life of Larry Bloom, a nebbishy New York City tour guide and struggling writer. A self-described prisoner of his own inhibitions, Larry is hopelessly in love with a beautiful, unconventional, and confused young woman, Starshine, who has agreed to have dinner with him. As in every romantic comedy, forces conspire to keep them apart, but in Appel’s clever, vigorously written, intently observed, and richly emotional tale, hilarious mishaps are wildly complicated by the intersections between life and Larry’s novel about Starshine. From bagel-throwing demonstrators attacking a group of puzzled Dutch tourists to Starshine’s bicycle odyssey in quest of a fruit basket for her Alzheimer’s-afflicted aunt to the mysterious powers of a one-armed building superintendent, Appel’s funky urban fairy tale is spiked with canny observations about human nature. Do we inherit or create luck? Is beauty a burden or a gift? Can love transcend fantasy? Seductive and thought-provoking. –Donna Seaman

Review

“There are not many books like “The Biology of Luck.” Why? Because few authors have the hyper-verbal skills of Jacob Appel.” — New City Lit

“An inventive exploration of the place where love, chance, expectations and ambitions intersect in the city that never sleeps.” – Kirkus Review

There’s a richness of allusion (besides the obvious nods to Joyce and his Bloom in June, Appel’s loving paean to his hometown pays extensive tribute to New York’s twin titans Melville and Whitman) in Biology that makes a few of Appel’s critically beloved contemporaries seem almost rootless by comparison. – The Masters Review

“ We’re offered a nuanced and sympathetic exploration of both characters, but the nuance and sympathy in Starshine’s narrative also suggest the fullness of Larry’s love, the degree to which Starshine has come to rule his imagination.”–The Colorado Review

“Appel captures the sounds, smells and feeling of human idiosyncracies, describing each person and place with layers of specifics and closely observed characters.” — North American Review

View on Amazon

电子书代发PDF格式价格30元我要求助

The Biology of Luck

The Biology of Luck

Book Description

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Review

About the Author

相关推荐