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.
- ISBN10 022617073X
- ISBN13 9780226170732
- Publish Date 19 November 2014 (first published December 1964)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Chicago Press
- Format eBook
- Pages 448
- Language English