The Gift: A Novel [Paperback]

David Flusfeder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 14, 2004

Phillip's best friends are richer than he is. They're more successful. Worst of all, they give fabulous presents: a handmade corkscrew from Venice, an irritatingly perfect jade carving, impossible-to-get soccer tickets. These are gifts that hurt a man's pride. And they can never be matched. Which doesn't mean Phillip won't try ... Outrageously funny and deftly observed, The Gift delights in the comically destructive forces of envy and desire that drive us all.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Black comedy meets social satire meets British farce in this winning novel by the author of Man Kills Woman, which shows how one man's generosity can become the source of another man's insanity. Phillip, an ex-football (as in soccer) star and a vaguely hapless instruction manual writer, is best friends with couple Barry and Sean, who are so rich and nice that they shower Phillip and his family with lavish gifts-skiing vacations, rare Chinese carvings and priceless Venetian corkscrews. With each new present he receives, Phillip becomes more obsessed with finding the perfect return gift. Repeated failures leave him so overwhelmed by gift inadequacy ("I had lost. I had been defeated utterly... I was the inferior man") that his attempts at reciprocation begin to look more like revenge. A sketchy fellow named Carlo-whom Phillip meets in jail after a dinner party gone awry-feeds Phillip's anxieties, and soon Phillip is sneaking into Barry and Sean's home in the middle of the night to perform a "creepy-crawly": shifting around their personal possessions and inadvertently killing one of the chinchilla rabbits he'd given them as a gift. Flusfeder's delightfully spare prose makes room, too, for the search for cult hero and erstwhile Pink Floyd guitarist Syd Barrett, with whom Barry is obsessed; movie world excesses, displayed by Barry and Sean's fancy friends; parenting anxiety; and lots of Taoist sex-though why Phillip's wife, Alice, remains eternally willing despite his near-psychosis is a bit of a mystery. This is a witty, razor-sharp novel, with just the right amount of tenderness.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Phillip, the happily married father of twin girls, likes to try on professions at cocktail parties, telling people that he is a designer of Chinese gardens or a screenwriter. In fact, he writes manuals for Korean bread-making machines. When his wealthy friends, Barry and Sean, make a habit out of treating Phillip and his family to fabulous Swiss skiing vacations and bringing them artifacts such as a costly Venetian corkscrew, Phillip's pride takes a serious hit, and he develops a severe case of "gift inadequacy." Soon he turns the whole enterprise into a mad contest, trying to think up clever items to give them in return, even going so far as to stalk reclusive rock star Syd Barrett with the intention of whisking him to a private meeting with Pink Floyd fan Barry. Flusfeder's farcical morality tale is darkly comedic but also surprisingly sweet in all the right places. Phillip, especially, is a huge draw, and his increasingly embarrassing antics may remind readers of Larry David from the TV program Curb Your Enthusiasm. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (December 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007157746
• ISBN-13: 978-0007157747
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,996,567 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Promising start, but drags on, August 13, 2004

By 

Linda Oskam "dutch-traveller" (Amsterdam Netherlands) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Gift: A Novel (Hardcover)

Phillip is a bit of a loser: after a knee injury his promising football career goes to pieces, his job as a creative writer means writing manuals for Korean bread making machines, his house is too expensive, his car too old, his father a left-over communist and his attempts to be a Tao master of love making to his wife Alice fail all the time. And worst of all, Alice and Phillip have this absolutely wonderful, creative gay couple of friends who always come up with The Perfect Gift. Phillip becomes obsessed with giving perfect gifts in return, but somehow he fails most of the time (for example: buying a beautiful organic food picknick hamper including an enormous smoked ham for a vegetarian). In the process of finding the perfect gift he nearly loses all that is dear to him in life.

The book starts of as a really nice read, but after the first part (halfway through the book), the developments become either more of the same or unrealistic and, despite the sometimes hilarious character sketches, the last half of the book could not really hold my attention.