The Full Catastrophe: A Novel - Softcover

Carkeet, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1590203402 ISBN 13: 9781590203408

Publisher: The Overlook Press, 2010

Synopsis

Linguist Jeremy Cook knows how language works, but he doesn't know how marriage works. In fact, he is strangely hostile to the institution. So Cook is naturally uneasy about his job with the Pillow Agency, a St. Louis firm specializing in "the linguistically troubled marriage." His assignment is to move in with Dan and Beth Wilson, a prosperous suburban couple with an impoverished relationship, to analyze their verbal problems and help them-if he can. As Cook catalogs the Wilsons' missed signs and missed signals, he becomes increasingly, most unscientifically, involved.

About this title

About the Author:

David Carkeet was born and raised in the Gold Rush town of Sonora, California. He went to college at U.C. Davis and Berkeley, then to graduate school at U. of Wisconsin and Indiana U.--thus the southern Indiana setting for "Double Negative," his first novel. He lived in St. Louis for 30 years, where he set "The Full Catastrophe" and "The Error of Our Ways." He now lives near Montpelier, Vermont, and you can probably guess where he set his newest novel, "From Away." He is married with three grown daughters. More info at davidcarkeet.com.

From Publishers Weekly:

Flaky, amiable Jeremy Cook, the linguist Carkeet introduced in Double Negative , leaves the ivied halls of academe for the closer confines of a suburban home in this wrenching yet often exhilarating examination of a troubled modern marriage. When the Wabash Institute in Indiana folds for lack of funding, Jeremy slips into a job in Saint Louis, Mo., with the Pillow Agency, a zany marriage-counseling service. His assignment is to move in with Beth and Dan Wilson and, by observing their interactions, help them decide if their marriage can be saved. Jeremy insinuates himself into the Wilsons' daily activities. His relationship with the couple and their game 10-year-old Robbie is at once intimate and distant, definitely a seat-of-the-pants proposition, but his training as a linguist serves him, and probably the Wilsons, well. Carkeet's premise is fresh, his characters utterly winning and his comic observations full of affection for those caught up in the complex confusions of love. Laugh-out-loud scenes and swift, convincing dialogue mark this lunatic look at serious issues; the conclusion may be irresolute, but all the more believable for that. Literary Guild alternate.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Overlook Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1590203402
• ISBN 13: 9781590203408
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320