Exiles in America: A Novel - Hardcover

Bram, Christopher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061138347 ISBN 13: 9780061138348

Publisher: William Morrow, 2006

Synopsis

Zack Knowles and Daniel Wexler have been together for twenty-one years. Zack is a psychiatrist, Daniel an art teacher at a college in Virginia. In the fall of 2002, a few months before the Iraq War, a new artist in residence, Abbas Rohani, arrives with his Russian wife, Elena, and their two children.

But Abbas is not quite what he seems, and soon he and Daniel begin an affair. After love throws the two families together, politics threatens the future of both in ways no one could have predicted.

A novel that explores how the personal becomes political, Exiles in America offers an intimate look at the meaning of marriage, gay and straight, and demonstrates the breathtaking skill and daring imagination that have garnered Christopher Bram widespread critical acclaim.

About this title

About the Author:

Christopher Bram is the author of eight other novels, including Gods and Monsters (originally titled Father of Frankenstein), which was made into an Academy Award-winning film. Bram was a 2001 Guggenheim Fellow and received the 2003 Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. He lives in New York City.

From Publishers Weekly:

Bram uneasily weds religion and the politics of sexual orientation in his tepid eighth novel. Daniel Wexler, 47, and Zachary Knowles, 48, together for 21 years, live in Williamsburg, Va., where Daniel teaches painting at William and Mary College and Zack maintains a psychiatry practice. The other, more literal, exiles are Abbas and Elena Rohani. A painter, Abbas is a visiting faculty member at the college and embodies the swarthy, omnisexual, selfish and impossibly handsome artist stereotype. Daniel's initial artistic jealousy of Abbas turns into an attraction that, thanks to the convenient open status of everyone's relationships, barrels toward consummation. The affair becomes more intense than intended, precipitating pages of fights between Daniel and Zack. It also crystallizes the unlikely alliance between Zack and Elena. After the affair founders, the FBI begins investigating Abbas's relationship with his brother, sparking even more emotional turmoil, but the novel falls short of its dramatic potential. (Sept.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0061138347
• ISBN 13: 9780061138348
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384