The Life to Come (A Novel)
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$17.95
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Product Details
Author:
Michelle de Kretser
Format:
Paperback
Pages:
368
Publisher:
Catapult (March 12, 2019)
Imprint:
Catapult
Language:
English
Audience:
General/trade
ISBN-13:
9781948226158
ISBN-10:
1948226154
Weight:
13.4oz
Dimensions:
5.5" x 8.2" x 1"
File:
RandomHouse-PRH_Book_Company_PRH_PRT_Onix_full_active_D20260705T115856_156890253-20260705.xml
Folder:
RandomHouse
List Price:
$17.95
Country of Origin:
United States
Pub Discount:
65
Case Pack:
48
As low as:
$13.82
Publisher Identifier:
P-RH
Discount Code:
A
QuickShip:
Yes
Overview
Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award
Shortlisted for the Stella Prize
Longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award
“For a novel concerned with dislocation, there's a lot of grounding humor in The Life to Come. Most of it comes at the expense of Pippa and her ilk, but de Kretser's observations are so spot on, you'll forgive her even as you cringe.”—Amelia Lester, New York Times Book Review
Set in Australia, France, and Sri Lanka, The Life to Come is about the stories we tell and don’t tell ourselves as individuals, as societies, and as nations. Driven by a vivid cast of characters, it explores necessary emigration, the art of fiction, and ethnic and class conflict.
Pippa is a writer who longs for success and eventually comes to fear that she “missed everything important.” Celeste tries to convince herself that her feelings for her married lover are reciprocated. Ash makes strategic use of his childhood in Sri Lanka, but blots out the memory of a tragedy from that time. Sri Lankan Christabel endures her dull job and envisions a brighter future that “rose, glittered, and sank back,” while she neglects the love close at hand.
The stand–alone yet connected worlds of The Life to Come offer meditations on intimacy, loneliness, and our flawed perception of reality. Enormously moving, gorgeously observant of physical detail, and often very funny, this new novel by Michelle de Kretser reveals how the shadows cast by both the past and the future can transform and distort the present. It is teeming with life and earned wisdom—exhilaratingly contemporary, with the feel of a classic.
Shortlisted for the Stella Prize
Longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award
“For a novel concerned with dislocation, there's a lot of grounding humor in The Life to Come. Most of it comes at the expense of Pippa and her ilk, but de Kretser's observations are so spot on, you'll forgive her even as you cringe.”—Amelia Lester, New York Times Book Review
Set in Australia, France, and Sri Lanka, The Life to Come is about the stories we tell and don’t tell ourselves as individuals, as societies, and as nations. Driven by a vivid cast of characters, it explores necessary emigration, the art of fiction, and ethnic and class conflict.
Pippa is a writer who longs for success and eventually comes to fear that she “missed everything important.” Celeste tries to convince herself that her feelings for her married lover are reciprocated. Ash makes strategic use of his childhood in Sri Lanka, but blots out the memory of a tragedy from that time. Sri Lankan Christabel endures her dull job and envisions a brighter future that “rose, glittered, and sank back,” while she neglects the love close at hand.
The stand–alone yet connected worlds of The Life to Come offer meditations on intimacy, loneliness, and our flawed perception of reality. Enormously moving, gorgeously observant of physical detail, and often very funny, this new novel by Michelle de Kretser reveals how the shadows cast by both the past and the future can transform and distort the present. It is teeming with life and earned wisdom—exhilaratingly contemporary, with the feel of a classic.








