An Absence of Cousins: A Novel

by Lore Segal

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Book cover for An Absence of Cousins

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Ilka Weisz is in need not just of friends but 'elective cousins'. She has left her home in New York to accept a junior teaching post at the prestigious Concordance Institute, a liberal college in bucolic Connecticut. But how can she, a Jewish refugee from Vienna, find a new set to belong to - a surrogate family? Might the Shakespeares - the institute's director and his wry, acerbic wife - hold the key?

In these interlinked New Yorker stories, Lore Segal evokes the comic melancholy of the outsider and the ineffectual ambitions of a progressive, predominantly WASP-ish institution. Tragedy and loss haunt characters as they plan an academic symposium on genocide, while their privileged lives contrast starkly with those on a derelict housing project next door.

Includes the acclaimed New Yorker podcast story, "The Reverse Bug".
  • ISBN10 1914502108
  • ISBN13 9781914502101
  • Publish Date 25 July 2024
  • Publish Status Forthcoming
  • Publish Country GB
  • Imprint Sort of Books
  • Edition Main
  • Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
  • Pages 240
  • Language English