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    Reuben, Reuben: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Reuben, Reuben: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Reuben, Reuben: A Novel
    Ebook571 pages12 hours

    Reuben, Reuben: A Novel

    By Peter De Vries

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Harking from the golden age of fiction set in American suburbia—the school of John Updike and Cheever—this work from the great American humorist Peter De Vries looks with laughter upon its lawns, its cocktails, and its slightly unreal feeling of comfort. A manic epic, Reuben, Reuben is really three books in one, tied together by a 1950s suburban Connecticut setting and hyper-literate cast of characters. A corruptible chicken farmer fearful for the fate of his beloved town, a womanizing poet from Wales (Dylan Thomas in disguise), and a hapless British poet-cum-actor-and-agent all take turns as narrator, revealing different, even conflicting views. But alcoholism, sexism, small-mindedness, and calamity challenge the high spirits of De Vries’s well-read suburbanites. Noted as much for his verbal fluidity and wordplay as for his ability to see humor through pain, De Vries will delight both new readers and old in this uproarious modern masterpiece.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateNov 19, 2014
    ISBN9780226170732
    Unavailable
    Reuben, Reuben: A Novel
    Author

    Peter De Vries

    Peter De Vries (1910–1993) was born in Chicago to Dutch immigrant parents. His father wanted him to join the clergy, but after attending Calvin College and Northwestern University, De Vries found work as a vending-machine operator, a toffee-apple salesman, a radio actor, and an editor at Poetry magazine. His friend and mentor James Thurber brought him to the attention of the New Yorker, and in 1944 De Vries moved to New York to become a regular staff contributor to the magazine, where he worked for the next forty years. A prolific author of novels, short stories, parodies, poetry, and essays, he published twenty-seven books during his lifetime and was heralded by Kingsley Amis as the “funniest serious writer to be found either side of the Atlantic.” De Vries was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1983, taking his place alongside Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, and S. J. Perelman as one of the nation’s greatest wits. 

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    Reviews for Reuben, Reuben

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    • 5/5
      Tom Conti is superb as a boozy, womanizing poet, one of those characters you know you shouldn't love, but do anyway. And so does Kelly McGillis, against all reason. Been looking for it for years without success, glad to have it again.