Music for Torching - by A M Homes (Paperback)

About the Book

In a tale that unfolds over the course of one week, the author of "The Safety of Objects" lays bare the foundations of marriage and family life at the end of the 20th century--an American Dream gone dry.

Book Synopsis

A tour de force: A. M. Homes's unforgettable New Yorker story unfolds into a fiercely entertaining novel of marriage, family, and the American dream.

In a tale that unfolds over the course of one week at the beginning of summer, A. M. Homes lays bare the foundations of marriage and family life at the end of the century--the American Dream gone dry. Flash frozen in the anxious entropy of suburban subdivision, Paul and Elaine (the couple featured in Homes's acclaimed first collection of stories, The Safety of Objects) have two boys and are obsessed with "making things good again." Alone--together--they spin the quiet terrors of family life into a fantastical frenzy that careens out of control: a Stepford-wife neighbor, an ill-conceived plan for a tattoo, a sexy town cop who shows up at all the wrong moments, an allergy-relief cleanup team in space suits, a hoard of contractors and repairmen, a mistress calling on the cell phone, and a hostage situation at the boys' school. With characters so flawed and outrageous they are entirely believable, Music for Torching is a surreal vision of a most familiar landscape.

From the Back Cover

As A.M. Homes's incendiary novel unfolds, the Kodacolor hues of the good life become nearly hallucinogenic.Laying bare th foundations of a marriage, flash frozen in the anxious entropy of a suburban subdivision, Paul and Elaine spin the quit terors of family life into a fantastical frenzy that careens out of control. From a strange and hilarious encounter with a Stepford Wife neighbor to an ill-conceived plan for a tattoo, to a sexy cop who shows up at all the wrong moments, to a housecleaning team in space suits, a mistress calling on a cell phone, and a hostage situationat a school, A.M. Homes creates characters so outrageously flawed and deeply human that thery are entriely believable.

Review Quotes

"Brilliant. . . .I found myself rapt from beginning to end, fascinated by Homes's single-minded talent for provocation."--New York Times Book Review"In this remarkable fourth novel, A.M. Homes delivers a sad/funny, wild-card strewn indictment of the ways our lives don't work at century's close. . . .all the more superb for the depth of its humanity."--Washington Post Book World"A sly, fast-paced and. . .darkly comic novel about a suburban marriage that's going to hell, fast."--Wall Street Journal"Exhilarating. . .a hellbound joyride of a book. Homes torches a whole genteel tradition of suburban fiction--Cheever, Updike--in which some center of stablility persists among the smug, the adulterous, and merely boring. . . .It's liberating to see the dead wood of unearned uplift get the old chop-chop. Rock-and-rollers have known for years that such rage and despair can yeild paradoxical exultation. What's taken writers so long?"--Newsweek"Searing. . .heartbreaking. . .the picture of suburban society is defly presented."--USA Today"Music for Torching has genuine and affecting emotional depth. . . .[Homes] gives conscience and tragic awareness to her characters with remarkable results."--The Boston Globe"It takes a real virtuoso to pull all this together, and Homes, happily, is just that."--Philadelphia Inquirer?Compelling. . .a haunting story of suburban ennui. It's no small achievement that Homes. . .manages to portray these blighted souls as people more to be pitied than loathed.?--People?Music for Torching is a page-turner that keeps us reading just to see what the author will think up next. A. M. Homes's manic study of suburban malaise ends up with some timely insights into the unravelingof the moral underpinnings of our affluent society, but before turning serious it offers a series of outrageously hilarious scenarios, all the more startling because they are utterly believable.?--Richmond Times Dispatch