An Absence of Cousins
A Novel
Published on 25. July 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
256 pages
978-1-914502-10-1 (ISBN)
Description
Ilka Weisz is in need not just of friends but 'elective cousins'. She has left her home in New York to accept a junior teaching post at the prestigious Concordance Institute, a liberal college in bucolic Connecticut. But how can she, a Jewish refugee from Vienna, find a new set to belong to - a surrogate family? Might the Shakespeares - the institute's director and his wry, acerbic wife - hold the key?
In these interlinked New Yorker stories, Lore Segal evokes the comic melancholy of the outsider and the ineffectual ambitions of a progressive, predominantly WASP-ish institution. Tragedy and loss haunt characters as they plan an academic symposium on genocide, while their privileged lives contrast starkly with those on a derelict housing project next door.
Includes the acclaimed New Yorker podcast story, "The Reverse Bug".
In these interlinked New Yorker stories, Lore Segal evokes the comic melancholy of the outsider and the ineffectual ambitions of a progressive, predominantly WASP-ish institution. Tragedy and loss haunt characters as they plan an academic symposium on genocide, while their privileged lives contrast starkly with those on a derelict housing project next door.
Includes the acclaimed New Yorker podcast story, "The Reverse Bug".
Reviews / Votes
Lore Segal has the sharp analytic eye of a born writer * The New York Times Book Review * A writer who has energy and brio running through everything she does ... I'd be happy for Ilka's story to carry on forever -- John Self * Times * Segal has the dazzling ability to merge the mundane details of life with the arc of human emotions * The Washington Post * I always feel in her work such a sense of toughness and humor ... Her writing is sad and funny, and that makes it more of both -- Jennifer Egan Lore Segal is a national treasure, brilliant, unsentimental, and wry * LitHub * Segal is a monumental writer, one of the finest of her generation * Kirkus Review * Her themes are big - memory, genocide, refugees, race - but her approach is fine-grained * The Paris Review * Segal's precise, witty prose and boundless empathy ensure that Ilka's world of 'elective cousinship' is one filled with enchantment -- Michael Arditti * Spectator * Lore Segal at her best: funny, warm and keenly observed * Daunt Books Favourite Books of the Week *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
300 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-914502-10-1 (9781914502101)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Lore Segal (1928 - 2024) was born in Vienna and escaped to England age ten on the Kindertransport. She moved to the USA in 1951 and has been contributing stories to the New Yorker for over sixty years. At age 95, she was elected to the US Academy of Arts and Letters. Sort Of publish three of her novels; Other People's Houses, Ladies' Lunch and An Absence of Cousins.