The City is a Rising Tide: A Novel [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Rebecca Lee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 27, 2006

In New York City, Justine Laxness works as a money manager at an international nonprofit company, Aquinas. Her obsession with her boss, Peter, spurs her to embezzle funds and lend the money to James Nutter, a screenwriter and old flame who has resurfaced in Justine's life after fifteen years. But every action she takes will have unforeseen ramifications, creating a tidal wave of betrayal and destruction, from the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze to the refined vistas of Central Park. Lyrical and suspenseful by turns, The City Is a Rising Tide is an enchanting work of luminous prose and uncommon imagination.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Early 1990s New York and 1970s Beijing intersect in the memory of Justine, who narrates her own downward spiral into an obsessive, unrequited love. Justine and co-worker Peter are, respectively, the sole staff and founder of a quasi-legitimate nonprofit quixotically attempting to build a holistic center in boom-time China. The two first met when Justine was just a child in Mao's Beijing, and Peter was already tossing about in shadowy financial deals; she fell for him then. A self-righteous ex-boyfriend, a chorus of women friends and a concerned family all tell Justine that waiting for Peter to reciprocate her love is a masochist's dream; a late revelation concerning Peter's unavailability is unsustained by the wispy plot. Like Justine, this debut lacks definition, but that becomes one of its strengths: a portrait of a perceptive yet lost woman who traces her own self-destruction with the same patient helplessness with which she loves. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Lee's unusual debut novel possesses the gloss and hardness of Chinese lacquer, which is accrued through the application of dozens of translucent layers. Her intriguingly unreliable narrator, Justine Laxness, a 37-year-old with a battered heart and an agenda hidden even from herself, works as the business manager for a precarious not-for-profit run by aloof and poetic Peter, who intends to build a healing center on the Yangtze River. Justine has been secretly in love with Peter since her childhood in China as the daughter of well-off missionaries, when Peter worked for Richard Nixon. Now, in booming 1990s New York, Justine pretends to be protecting Peter by withholding information about the impending drastic consequences of the Three Gorges Dam and concealing her risky financial machinations, but in fact her actions are rooted in anger and lead to sabotage. Lee has created a moody, entrancing, and suspenseful seriocomic tale replete with shimmering landscapes, caustic irony, and provocative inquiries into the motives of do-gooders and the narcosis of illusion. This intricate novel isn't perfect, but it is significant and extraordinarily astute as rising tides literal and figurative threaten to drown dreams, love, and peace. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (June 27, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743276655
• ISBN-13: 978-0743276658
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,344,697 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dazzling, brilliant, funny as hell -- this book will save your life!, May 9, 2006

By 

January Wayne (North Carolina, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The City is a Rising Tide: A Novel (Hardcover)

I have been a fan of Rebecca Lee's stories in the Atlantic for years and was lucky enough to get my hands on an early review copy of her novel which is if anything even more lyrical and devastating than her earlier work. Imagine hearing the most interesting and personal gossip about the most mysterious and colorful and glamourous people, whispered in your ear by your genius friend who casually cites poetry and is interested above all in how and why we live and love. Besides being hilarious and sharply observed and a page-turner, this book almost off-handedly returns again and again to these questions: Why does life break our hearts? Is it okay to feel this way? What does it mean to love?

Nobody else writes like Rebecca Lee -- lyrical and satirical by turns, she delivers a compellingly human story in exquisitely precise and poetic prose.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good but..., July 11, 2006

By 

VS "[e-mail]" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The City is a Rising Tide: A Novel (Hardcover)

Rebecca Lee writes wonderfully. Her phrases and use of language are impeccable and gorgeous. But I have to say that despite enjoying the book quite a lot, I was left unsatisfied by the ending. I was left with so many unanswered questions, I wished she would have added an extra chapter to wrap the story better.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The City is a Rising Tide is a masterful, absorbing novel, April 8, 2007

By 

Todd Berliner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The City is a Rising Tide: A Novel (Hardcover)

Lovely, witty The City is a Rising Tide is full of lyrical prose and insight: "it seems ridiculous that you can just reach out and touch a person whenever you feel like it"; "sleep in its mercy pulling the plug on their personalities." Each short chapter has moments of richly rendered, unconventional wisdom. And each character in the book's absorbing, unusual plot is singular and idiosyncratic, not one of them representative of any idea or genre, only themselves.