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A towering landmark of postwar Realism. . . . A sustained work of prose so lucid and fine it seems less written than carved. David Foster Wallace
Otto and Sophie Bentwood live in a changing neighborhood in Brooklyn. Their stainless-steel kitchen is newly installed, and their Mercedes is parked curbside. After Sophie is bitten on the hand while trying to feed a stray, perhaps rabies-infected cat, a series of small and ominous disasters begin to plague the Bentwoods' lives, revealing the fault lines and fractures in a marriageand a societywrenching itself apart.
First published in 1970 to wide acclaim, Desperate Characters stands as one of the most dazzling and rigorous examples of the storyteller's craft in postwar American literature a novel that, according to Irving Howe, ranks with Billy Budd, The Great Gatsby, Miss Lonelyhearts, and Seize the Day.
