Product Description A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • This “deeply immersive novel” (The Washington Post) from the author of the award–winning Preparation for the Next Life is an “epic coming-of-age tale filled with pain, heartache, fear, and undying love” (The Associated Press), as a young man’s yearning to protect his dying mother requires him to risk destroying his estranged, enigmatic, powerful father. “From its hypnotic opening pages, we find ourselves in the sure hands of a roaming omniscient narrator, one who knows intimately the beating hearts of its two central characters” —Andre Dubus III, The New York Times Book ReviewCorey Goltz grows up in the working-class outskirts of Boston as the only child of Gloria, whose ambitions were derailed early but who has always given her son everything she can. Corey, restless, dreams of leaving home for a great adventure. Instead, when he is fifteen, the world comes crashing down upon him, when Gloria is diagnosed with ALS and, too late, his estranged father, Leonard—a man of great charisma but dubious moral character—reenters the picture. Determined to be his mother’s hero at any cost, Corey begins shouldering responsibility for her expensive medical care, pushing himself to his physical and emotional limits as her disease cruelly progresses. And as Leonard’s influence over Corey grows, Corey must dismantle the myth of his father’s genius and confront the evil that lurks beneath it. Gritty, visceral, and profoundly stirring, The War for Gloria tells the story of a young man, straddling childhood and adulthood, whose yearning to protect his mother requires him to risk destroying his father. An indelible work from a strikingly original voice in American fiction. Review A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK OF THE YEAR • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: TOWN & COUNTRY, KIRKUS“A deeply immersive novel.” —Mark Athitakis,The Washington Post“The War For Gloria is an ambitious book with a lot to say about family loyalty and love . . . Lish is a sensational literary craftsman, using the words in his toolbelt to construct narrative that is at once coolly dispassionate and red hot with emotion . . . I will be thinking about The War For Gloria for a long time.” —Martha Anne Toll, NPR“A force, an epic coming-of-age tale filled with pain, heartache, fear, and undying love . . . Lish has crafted a compelling tale filled with complex and at times, frightening characters that will keep you intrigued.” —Molly Sprayregen, The Associated Press “Profoundly affecting . . . From its hypnotic opening pages, we find ourselves in the sure hands of a roaming omniscient narrator, one who knows intimately the beating hearts of its two central characters: Gloria, a young single mother, and Corey, her only child, a boy who shows a passion for sailing from studying books . . . Lish’s substantial gifts, first shown in his acclaimed debut novel, Preparation for the Next Life, are in abundant display here and throughout this gorgeously written book . . . All of this is captured by a passionate narrative voice that has clearly been around, one that intimately knows not only the rigors of confined combat in a cage fight but also the bruised and hungry heart of a woman yearning to fulfill her potential before she dies. But at the core of The War for Gloria is the unforgettable character of Corey, a young man who is left to care for his dying mother alone, a boy who is hurled into the hard streets to find his solitary way. With this, only his second novel, Lish has not only created a work of enduring art, he has distinguished himself as one of our finest writers.” —Andre Dubus III, The New York Times Book Review “The poise of Mr. Lish’s writing makes this bleak story so dangerously absorbing. Gloria’s inexorable degeneration from ALS is charted with devastating care and observational ﬁnesse . . . The powerfully ambiguous ending brings to a ﬁtting close a remarkable portrait of a sensitive bo

The War for Gloria: A novel

Literature & Fiction

Lish, Atticus

Literary

Vintage

The War for Gloria: A novel (Random House Large Print)

Random House, Large Print

Life Is with People

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Tyrant Books

Preparation for the Next Life

Winner of the 2015 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction New York Times Best of 2014 Wall Street Journal's Best of 2014 Vanity Fair's Best of 2014 Publishers Weekly's Best of 2014 BuzzFeed's Best of 2014 
Zou Lei, orphan of the desert, migrates to work in America and finds herself slaving in New York's kitchens. She falls in love with a young man whose heart has been broken in another desert. A new life may be possible if together they can survive homelessness, lockup, and the young man's nightmares, which may be more prophecy than madness.
Praise for Preparation for the Next Life
 "Perhaps the finest and most unsentimental love story of the new decade." -The New York Times "As bold and urgent a love story as you’ll read this year." -Wall Street Journal "A sledgehammer to the American dream." -Kirkus Reviews "One of the most acclaimed debut novelists of the year." - New York Observer Lish (Life Is with People) turns to fiction with this stunning debut novel that plums the underbelly of New York City, tracing the relationship of Zou Lei, a Chinese immigrant working in a tiny noodle restaurant, and Skinner, an AWOL Iraqi war veteran and wanderer. Enduring stints in prison and homelessness, Zou Lei and Skinner experience life on society's fringes. Lish destroys the American dream with struggles his characters face and New York City is anything but idyllic. Zou Lei and Skinner have their budding relationship tested by insurmountable odds, and their own foibles and peculiarities are rendered with vivid detail. Lish's prose is at once raw and disciplined, and every word feels necessary. -Publishers Weekly "So much of American fiction has become playful, cynical and evasive. "Preparation for the Next Life" is the strong antidote to such inconsequentialities. Powerfully realistic, with a solemn, muscular lyricism, this is a very, very good book." –Joy Williams The “next life” of Atticus Lish’s novel is the one you have to die to know. It’s also the next civilian life of a soldier ravaged by three tours in Iraq, and the dodgy life of an immigrant in the city’s sleepless boroughs. The work is violent, swift, and gloriously descriptive. It is love story and lament, a haunting record of unraveling lives. Lish says starkly and with enormous power: the spirit prevails until it doesn’t. A stunning debut.
--Noy Holland, author of Swim for the Little One First 
An illegal Chinese immigrant meets a broken American warrior, and the great love story of the 21st century begins. The intersection of their paths seems inevitable, irrevocable. Their story: tender, violent, terrible, and beautiful. Atticus Lish's prose, lyrical and taut, sentences as exact and indisputable as chemical formulas, is trance-like, evangelical in its ability to convert and convince its reader. Preparation for the Next Life is that rare novel that grabs you by the shirt and slaps you hard in the face. Look, it says. It isn't pretty. Turn away at your own risk. In case you haven't noticed, the American Dream has become a nightmare. Atticus Lish has your wake up call. He has created a new prototype of the hero, and her journey provides us with a devastating perspective on the "promised land" of the post 9/11 U.S., where being detained is a rite of passage and the banality of violence is simply part of the pre-apocalyptic landscape. -Christopher Kennedy, Ennui Prophet

United States

Zou Lei, orphan of the desert, migrates to work in America and finds herself slaving in New York's kitchens. She falls in love with a young man whose heart has been broken in another desert. A new life may be possible if together they can survive homelessness, lockup, and the young man's nightmares, which may be more prophecy than madness.

Preparation For The Next Life

From the author of the PEN/Faulkner winning debut novel Preparation for the Next Life --a searing, tender, haunting story about fathers and sons, sons and mothers, and a young boy's struggle to become a man.\nCorey Goltz is fifteen years old when his mother, Gloria, is diagnosed with ALS. Estranged from his father, and increasingly responsible for meeting both his mother's needs and his own, Corey is determined to be the hero Gloria needs--at any cost.\nBut when his father Leonard re-enters the picture, Corey's beliefs--about honour and love, duty and devotion, and the uses and misuses of power--are sorely tested. Charismatic and cruel, Leonard is a man of outsize influence and dubious moral character, a man whose neglect of his wife and son amounts to a kind of barbarism. The closer Corey gets to understanding his father's role in their family, the closer he comes to unmasking a violence that is beyond even his worst imaginings.\nSet against the backdrop of a small town in Massachusetts in the early 2000s, where the working-class world collides with the professional and academic worlds of nearby Boston and Cambridge, The War for Gloria tells the story of a young man straddling childhood and adulthood, whose yearning to protect his mother requires him to dismantle the myth of--and possibly destroy--his father. A gripping, indelible work from a fearless new voice in American fiction.

The War for Gloria: A Novel

Parenting & Relationships

Family Relationships

KNOPF

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR&nbsp;* This "deeply immersive novel" (The Washington Post) from the author of the award-winning Preparation for the Next Life is an "epic coming-of-age tale filled with pain, heartache, fear, and undying love" (The Associated Press), as a young man's yearning to protect his dying mother requires him to risk destroying his estranged, enigmatic, powerful father. &nbsp; "From its hypnotic opening pages, we find ourselves in the sure hands of a roaming omniscient narrator, one who knows intimately the beating hearts of its two central characters" --Andre Dubus III, The New York Times Book Review Corey Goltz grows up in the working-class outskirts of Boston as the only child of Gloria, whose ambitions were derailed early but who has always given her son everything she can. Corey, restless, dreams of leaving home for a great adventure. &nbsp; Instead, when he is fifteen, the world comes crashing down upon him, when Gloria is diagnosed with ALS and, too late, his estranged father, Leonard--a man of great charisma but dubious moral character--reenters the picture. Determined to be his mother's hero at any cost, Corey begins shouldering responsibility for her expensive medical care, pushing himself to his physical and emotional limits as her disease cruelly progresses. And as Leonard's influence over Corey grows, Corey must dismantle the myth of his father's genius and confront the evil that lurks beneath it. &nbsp; Gritty, visceral, and profoundly stirring, The War for Gloria tells the story of a young man, straddling childhood and adulthood, whose yearning to protect his mother requires him to risk destroying his father. An indelible work from a strikingly original voice in American fiction.

Preparation for the Next Life [Paperback] [Feb 04, 2016] Lish Atticus

Oneworld Publications

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lish, Atticus. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lish, Atticus