Necessary Errors
A Novel
Published on 6. August 2013
Book
Paperback/Softback
480 pages
978-0-14-312241-8 (ISBN)
Description
ONE OF THE YEAR'S BEST BOOKS
The Wall Street Journal • Slate • Kansas City Star • Flavorwire • Policy Mic • Buzzfeed
"Necessary Errors is a very good novel, an enviably good one, and to read it is to relive all the anxieties and illusions and grand projects of one's own youth."-James Wood, The New Yorker
The exquisite debut novel by the author of Overthrow that brilliantly captures the lives and romances of young expatriates in newly democratic Prague
It's October 1990. Jacob Putnam is young and full of ideas. He's arrived a year too late to witness Czechoslovakia's revolution, but he still hopes to find its spirit, somehow. He discovers a country at a crossroads between communism and capitalism, and a picturesque city overflowing with a vibrant, searching sense of possibility. As the men and women Jacob meets begin to fall in love with one another, no one turns out to be quite the same as the idea Jacob has of them-including Jacob himself.
Necessary Errors is the long-awaited first novel from literary critic and journalist Caleb Crain. Shimmering and expansive, Crain's prose richly captures the turbulent feelings and discoveries of youth as it stretches toward adulthood-the chance encounters that grow into lasting, unforgettable experiences and the surprises of our first ventures into a foreign world-and the treasure of living in Prague during an era of historic change.
The Wall Street Journal • Slate • Kansas City Star • Flavorwire • Policy Mic • Buzzfeed
"Necessary Errors is a very good novel, an enviably good one, and to read it is to relive all the anxieties and illusions and grand projects of one's own youth."-James Wood, The New Yorker
The exquisite debut novel by the author of Overthrow that brilliantly captures the lives and romances of young expatriates in newly democratic Prague
It's October 1990. Jacob Putnam is young and full of ideas. He's arrived a year too late to witness Czechoslovakia's revolution, but he still hopes to find its spirit, somehow. He discovers a country at a crossroads between communism and capitalism, and a picturesque city overflowing with a vibrant, searching sense of possibility. As the men and women Jacob meets begin to fall in love with one another, no one turns out to be quite the same as the idea Jacob has of them-including Jacob himself.
Necessary Errors is the long-awaited first novel from literary critic and journalist Caleb Crain. Shimmering and expansive, Crain's prose richly captures the turbulent feelings and discoveries of youth as it stretches toward adulthood-the chance encounters that grow into lasting, unforgettable experiences and the surprises of our first ventures into a foreign world-and the treasure of living in Prague during an era of historic change.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Penguin Putnam Inc
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 214 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
668 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-14-312241-8 (9780143122418)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Caleb Crain is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, the Nation, the New York Times Magazine, the London Review of Books, n+1, the Paris Review Daily, and the New York Times Book Review. A graduate of Harvard and Columbia, he is the author of the critical work American Sympathy. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.