New York: Doubleday. Fine in Near Fine dust jacket. 2004. 1. Hard Cover. 0767910303 . Quarter bound in grey cloth over white boards, gilt lettering on spine.. The volume is in excellent condition, unmarked, tight, square and clean. The unclipped dust jacket shows slight shelf-wear, small, light stain near top of front panel, else fine. FINE/NEAR FINE . 8vo 8" - 9" tall. (x),351,(1) pp .

Synopsis

For ten years, Hugo Whittier, upper-class scion, former gigolo, failed belle-lettrist has been living a hermit's existence at Waverly, his family's crumbling mansion overlooking the Hudson. He passes the time reading Montaigne and M.F.K. Fisher, cooking himself delicious meals, smoking an endless number of cigarettes, and nursing a grudge against the world. But his older brother, Dennis, has returned, in retreat from an unhappy marriage, and so has his estranged wife, Sonia, and their (she claims) daughter, Bellatrix, shattering Hugo's cherished solitude. He's also been told by a doctor that he has the rare Buerger's disease, which means that unless he stops smoking he will die--all the more reason for Hugo to light up, because his quarrel with life is bitter and an early death is a most attractive prospect. As Hugo smokes and cooks and sexually schemes and pokes his perverse nose into other people's marriages and business, he records these events as well as his mordant, funny, gorgeously articulated personal history and his thoughts on life and mortality in a series of notebooks. His is one of the most perversely compelling literary personalities to inhabit a novel since John Lanchester's The Debt to Pleasure, and his ancestors include the divinely cracked and eloquent narrators of the works of Nabokov. As snobbish and dislikable as Hugo is, his worldview is so enticingly conveyed that even the most resistant reader will be put under his spell. His insinuating voice gets into your head and under your skin in the most seductive way. And as he prepares what may be his final Christmas feast for family and friends, readers will have to ask, "Is this the end of Hugo?"The Epicure's Lament is a wry and witty novel about love and death and family, a major contribution to a vein of literature that the author Kate Christensen has dubbed "loser lit." It more than fulfills the bright promise of her lavishly praised previous two novels, and gives us an antihero for our time--hard to like, impossible to resist.From the Hardcover edition.

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Details

Bookseller: Round Table Books, LLC (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #: 7541
Title: The Epicure's Lament
Author: Christensen, Kate
Format/Binding: Hard Cover
Book Condition: Used - Fine in Near Fine dust jacket
Edition: 1
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0767910303
ISBN 13: 9780767910309
Publisher: Doubleday
Place of Publication: New York
Date Published: 2004
Keywords: 0767910303, Fiction;

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Round Table Books, LLC lists rare, beautiful and interesting books. All books are described accurately, packed carefully and shipped promptly. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED - Any book may be returned within 30 days of receipt for a full refund.

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Fine: A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
Cloth: "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
Jacket: Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
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Gilt: The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
Spine: The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....