Chatter: A Novel [Hardcover]

Perrin Ireland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 23, 2007

Michael and Sarah's marriage is already in trouble. But the revelation that Michael has a daughter he's never mentioned—and only just met—pushes their relationship to the breaking point. His secrecy about the past, his compulsion to visit his ex-lover, and the sudden presence of his beautiful, grown daughter in their lives drives Sarah to search for the truth—a search that takes her from Washington, D.C., to Latin America.

Chatter is a snapshot of a marriage taken against the landscape of our frenetic culture, where invasive news reports, overheard conversations, and screaming headlines punctuate our days. Its dead-on dialogue captures the collapse of communication and the tension created when discussions go unfinished and questions go unanswered.

Balancing humor and terror, Ireland brilliantly depicts the elusiveness of security—globally and in our own homes—and the longing to find that safe place in a loved one's arms.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After a career at the NEA and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Ireland published her debut novel, Ana Imagined, in 2000, and follows it with this intriguing, sophisticated look at talk in marriage. Comfortable Bostonians Sarah and Michael are sorting out their childless 18-year marriage (the second for both) when Camila, a beautiful 30-something Latina, turns up claiming she's Michael's daughter. Michael, who already has a daughter from his first marriage, is great-looking and mischievous and charming, but hot-tempered and uncommunicative about his past, including his Latin American Peace Corps stint. As the consequences of Michael's continued stonewalling spin out, he prepares to visit Camila's mother. Sarah, meanwhile, seeks comfort in the arms of a man she meets on a train. Ireland is less after their story than the ways Michael and Sarah communicate, a pointed staccato rife with missed connections, misdirection and blithe ignoring. That chatter is also bombarded from the outside by TV, radio, periodicals and other organs of the culture at large, often with complex effects—especially for novelist Sarah, and particularly given the pointedly post-9/11 setting. So while the plot is contrived and the characters honed to razor-thin dimensions, Ireland gets uncomfortably close to what people say about what they do. (Oct.)
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From Booklist

Chatty in tone, this appropriately titled debut novel features a cast of characters who converse and think in clipped sound bytes. Initially distracting, the author's peripatetic pacing mirrors the media-generated background noise that accompanies contemporary life. As the story of Michael and Sarah, a middle-aged couple whose marriage is challenged by the appearance of a daughter Michael never knew he had, evolves, the slice-of-life plot is bolstered by the almost omniscient television and radio reports chronicling the political and cultural fallout of a landscape steeped in the tensions generated by the ever-present threat of global terrorism. When the quirky, dialogue-heavy narrative is read between the lines, an eventually affirmative portrait of a modern relationship resonates with hidden depths. Flanagan, Margaret

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 245 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books; First Edition edition (October 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565125401
• ISBN-13: 978-1565125407
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,002,614 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Perrin Ireland is the author of the novels "Chatter" (Algonquin Books), and "Ana Imagined" (Graywolf Press). Her work has been published in AGNI magazine (fiction and poetry), The Boston Globe (book reviews), Post Road magazine (nonfiction), and Fanzine (nonfiction). She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Prior to devoting full time to writing, Perrin was Associate Director for Drama and Arts at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and a senior program officer at the National Endowment for the Arts. She was Executive Producer of "Spirit to Spirit: Nikki Giovanni," a documentary aired natioally on PBS.

Perrin and her husband divide their time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C. For reviews and more information, please visit www.PerrinIreland.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh and fast-paced, October 28, 2007

By 

M. Harrington (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chatter: A Novel (Hardcover)

She's done it again. As in her first novel, Ana Imagined, Ireland's airy writing style is both vivid and thought-provoking. I want to read it again to see what nuggets I may have missed the first time. I found myself laughing out loud at the disjointed and realistic communication between Michael and Sarah. She expertly captures casual banter between husband and wife in a way I've never seen. It provides comic relief against Sarah's insecurities over her husband's past and her sorrow over her ailing friend.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A witty page-turner, October 23, 2007

By 

bookworm - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chatter: A Novel (Hardcover)

Chatter is a fresh, surprising, inventive page-turner, with witty observations about contemporary life and relationships alternating with darker reflections on politics, morality, and man's inhumanity to man. Terrorist chatter, echoes from the past, overheard conversations, and random bits from TVs and cellphones penetrate Sarah's mind; the swirling (and sometimes hilarious) stream of her consciousness gives us a prickly, smart, sensitive woman coping with a marital crisis in which the mysterious past comes home to roost. The book's got plot, style, sophistication, and class; it's very funny, and also deeply poignant. I loved it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Literary Fiction, October 17, 2007

By 

a reader (Montgomery, AL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chatter: A Novel (Hardcover)

This is an intelligent, compelling, affecting novel, which is, concurrently, wildly funny. Covering issues far beyond marriage and adultery and the complexities of family and friendship, it explores issues of international import. Joan Didion meets Woody Allen.