A Singular Man
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
Behind the gilded facade of mid-century American prosperity lurks George Smith, a mysteriously wealthy recluse obsessed with building himself the grandest mausoleum the world has ever seen — a man who retreats from life even as it insists on intruding upon him. J.P. Donleavy's A Singular Man, first published in 1963, chronicles Smith's darkly comic odyssey through loneliness, love, and the absurdities of social convention, as he navigates a world that simultaneously courts and excludes him, finding solace in the arms of the vivacious Sally Tomson while death looms as his only true companion. Donleavy, the Irish-American master of tragicomic prose, constructs a narrative universe that is at once hilarious and profoundly melancholic, his signature staccato style — fragmented sentences, stream-of-consciousness interludes, and bittersweet lyricism — drawing the reader into Smith's fractured inner world. A spiritual successor to The Ginger Man, this novel cements Donleavy's reputation as a singular voice in 20th-century literature, one who wielded black humour as a scalpel against the pretensions of modern life. Whether Smith's magnificent tomb will ever be completed remains, to the very last page, deliciously uncertain.
Author: J.P. Donleavy
Format: Hardback
Genre: Modern fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
Behind the gilded facade of mid-century American prosperity lurks George Smith, a mysteriously wealthy recluse obsessed with building himself the grandest mausoleum the world has ever seen — a man who retreats from life even as it insists on intruding upon him. J.P. Donleavy's A Singular Man, first published in 1963, chronicles Smith's darkly comic odyssey through loneliness, love, and the absurdities of social convention, as he navigates a world that simultaneously courts and excludes him, finding solace in the arms of the vivacious Sally Tomson while death looms as his only true companion. Donleavy, the Irish-American master of tragicomic prose, constructs a narrative universe that is at once hilarious and profoundly melancholic, his signature staccato style — fragmented sentences, stream-of-consciousness interludes, and bittersweet lyricism — drawing the reader into Smith's fractured inner world. A spiritual successor to The Ginger Man, this novel cements Donleavy's reputation as a singular voice in 20th-century literature, one who wielded black humour as a scalpel against the pretensions of modern life. Whether Smith's magnificent tomb will ever be completed remains, to the very last page, deliciously uncertain.