The Facades - Hardcover

Lundgren, Eric

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0715647679 ISBN 13: 9780715647677

Publisher: Duckworth Overlook, 2014

Synopsis

A 2013 BEA Buzz Selection and a Barnes & Noble Discover pick, The Facades is one of the most remarkable and talked-about debut novels in recent memory.

Set in the once-great Midwestern city of Trude―a treacherous maze of convoluted shopping malls, barricaded libraries, and elitist assisted-living homes―Lundgren’s novel follows a disconsolate legal clerk named Sven Norberg, who sets out to investigate his wife’s disappearance. Written with boundless intelligence and razor-sharp wit, The Facades is a comic and existential mystery that unfolds at the urgent pace of a thriller.  
 
The Facades has been met with rapturous reviews upon its publication, and will be read and discussed for many years to come.

About this title

About the Author:

Eric Lundgren grew up in Minneapolis. He studied at Lewis & Clark College and earned his MFA at Washington University, where he was awarded a third-year fellowship. The Facades is first novel. He works at a public library in St. Louis, where he lives with his wife, Eleanor, and their two cats.

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. In this fascinating, complex debut novel, a famous mezzo-soprano vanishes from rehearsal, leaving behind her husband, Sven, to care for their disaffected son and search for her in the labyrinthine streets of fictional Midwestern city Trude. Though most of the plot involves Sven's existential and often humorous detective work, Trude itself is the biggest of Lundgren's many successes here. The once-great city is well rendered not only in its physical appearance (The city assembled itself, scattered lights in the old skyscrapers meandering the night sky like notes on a staff), but also in its oddities, such as the militarized library where the librarians are in a stalemate with police, a pretentious nursing home that is more difficult to gain admission to than the local college, and bathroom graffiti that reads, There is no use in killing oneself; one always does it too late. Ratcheted onto the spine of an un-put-downable mystery and brimming with entertaining dialogue and unique, well-wrought characters, this is one of those rare books that corners every mood, every emotion, and throws them into the spotlight. Lundgren's debut is a fierce, funny examination of loss, set against one of the most creative worlds in recent memory, and it's not to be missed. (Sept.)

About this edition

• Publisher: Duckworth Overlook
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0715647679
• ISBN 13: 9780715647677
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272