Coast to Coast: A Novel [Hardcover]

Frederic Raphael (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1999

Marion and Barnaby Pierce are a New England couple in their sixties who are selling their house and driving to Los Angeles to attend their son’s wedding, give him Barnaby’s vintage Jaguar, and then go their separate ways. On their journey, they pick at each other’s weaknesses and betrayals with an edgy mixture of humor and cruelty. This is a bittersweet study of chagrin in which love, hatred, and self-loathing fuel rapid-fire dialogue and wit.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"It's not a tragedy. It's not quite a comedy. My agent would not be surprised to discover that we're having difficulty placing it." It's also how late-middle-aged sit-com writer Barnaby Pierce describes his fraught marriage, and the way that the prolific British writer Raphael vicariously names the hybrid genre of his own serio-comic antiromance. Told mainly through the snapping, sparring dialogue between Barnaby and his wife, Marion, as they travel from New York to California in a '67 Jag, the novel maps the course of their life together. In crisis, the two reveal and revenge each other's infidelities, discussing divorce even as they make their way cross-country to attend their son's wedding in the vehicle they plan to give him as a nuptial gift. In jest, the couple is verbally dexterous and almost flirtatious, ? la Beatrice and Benedict; in anger, each is ruthlessly ad hominem. Barnie scorns Marion's desire for separationAyet there is real pathos in his provocative insistence that she doesn't love him anymoreAas he struggles to find ways of keeping her in his life. Jealousies run deep: Marion slept with Barnie's best friend, Hal, with whom they stay on their way west; Barnie had an affair with a woman close to Marion. And of their four children, one has died, another is estranged from the family, yet another has surprised her rather conservative family with a black boyfriend. Playing push-me pull-you over even the most minor decisions, the couple recycle arguments in the terrifyingly relentless way of the truly intimateAso accurately, in fact, that some may find the lack of forward motion frustrating. Raphael's ear is pitched acutely to American speech, but the ferocious energy of the dialogue cannot carry the novel by itself; each episode remains a brilliant set piece in a linked dramatic structure. Already published and well-received in Britain, where Raphael is widely known, the novel succeeds as a graph of human volatility and a measure of a relationship's resilience. (May) FYI: Raphael's screenplay for Darling won an Oscar and his classic road-trip romance, Two for the Road, received a nomination. Most recently, he has collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the already big-buzz forthcoming film, Eyes Wide Shut.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Bicker, bicker, bicker! Thats all screenwriter Barnaby Pierce and his partly estranged wife, Marion, do as they drive across the country for their sons wedding. Past and present are illuminated through brilliant dialog as they encounter old acquaintances and bare old wounds along the way. Frankly, after about five pages one starts hoping for a fatal collision, but utter dislike of the whining antagonists is transformed into morbid fascination as the story picks up speed and skids to a surprise conclusion. The Guardian described this book perfectly when it was first published in Britain as bleakly enjoyable, and filled with some terrifically hateful conversations. Recommended for medium to large public and academic libraries. [British author Raphael is also an Oscar-nominated screenwriter who wrote the screenplay for Stanley Kubricks forthcoming film Eyes Wide Shut.Ed.]Jim Dwyer, California State Univ. Lib., Chic.
-Jim Dwyer, California State Univ. Lib., Chico
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Catbird Press (April 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0945774427
• ISBN-13: 978-0945774426
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,089,817 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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