The fall release of new novels features Pulitzer Prize winning author Jeffrey Eugenides, Nobel Prize winning author Jose Saramago and Man Booker Prize winning authors Alan Hollinghurst and Michael Ondaatje. The four bestselling authors all issued October 2011 releases ranging from topics exploring desire, death, war, old testament characters, education and childhood.
The Cat's Table, Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje won the Booker Prize for his 1992 novel, The English Patient.
In The Cat's Tale, Ondaatje tells the story of a young boy traveling by boat from Sri Lanka to London in the 1950s. During meal time, the boy is placed at "the cat's table," the table furthest away from the captain's own seating place. At this table he meets an eccentric group of adults as well as two other young boys with whom he experiences the voyage. The boys go on a variety of adventures, exploring the ship's upper and lower decks, encountering a shackled prisoner who's own story becomes integrated with that of the young boys. Ondaatje provides extra insight into the characters by including passages from the principle character's future, demonstrating how his voyage on the ship really did shape his life.
The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
Jeffrey Eugenides won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2002 novel Middlesex.
A love triangle may not be the first thing expected out of Jeffrey Eugenides, but that is the story he tells in his new novel. Set in 1980, the story's principle character, Madeline, finds herself fixated on the novels of Jane Austen and George Eliot. Novelists like Austen introduced the structure of the marriage plot in literature, where a couple or love triangle is faced with obstacles eventually resulting in marriage. In this work, Eugendies sets up the old structure of the marriage plot against more modern concepts of feminism. He uses Madeline and her two suitors to examine how the marriage plot might exist in a world of divorce, pre-nups and infidelity.
Cain, Jose Saramago
Jose Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. He died June 18, 2010.
Cain serves as the last work for the late Jose Saramago. In the short, 159-page, novel, Saramago reimagines parts of the old testament, working primarily through the character Cain. Cain, who in the Bible, kills his brother in a jealous rage does the same in Saramago's novel, but Saramago expands his story. In this retelling, Cain traverses through some of the Old Testament's most notable stories - Noah and the ark, the tower of Babel, Issac and Abraham and more - offering new commentary and perspective to ancient tales.
The Stranger's Child, Alan Hollinghurst
Alan Hollinghurst won the Man Booker Prize for his 2004 novel The Line of Beauty.The Stranger's Child tells the decades long story of George, Cecil and Daphne, three young people on the cusp of World War I. Cecil, an aristocratic poet, becomes the object of both George and Daphne's affection, writing a poem in Daphane's book that will be recited by children throughout Europe during World War I. But when Cecil is killed in the war, his reputation is crushed and the question of whether the poem was written for George or Daphane emerges. Years later, when a tell-all biography is written about Cecil many more secrets emerge about the young poet, but are they really true? In his new novel, Hollingshurt explores the ideas of young love, biography and truth. How much do we really know about each other?
Sources:
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje, Knopf, 2011, 9780307700117
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, Vintage, 1992, 9780679745204
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011, 9780374203054
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002, 978031242773
Cain by Jose Saramago, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011, 9780547419893
The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst, Picador, 2011, 9780307272768
The Line of Beautyby Alan Hollinghurst, Bloomsbury, 2004, 9781582345086
Ashley Wilbourn Pinciaro - Ashley Pinciaro received a M.A. in journalism from Emerson College in 2009 and has since worked for media platforms throughout New ...
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