One D.O.A., One on the Way: A Novel [Hardcover]

Mary Robison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2009

One D.O.A., One on the Way is a novel which opens on Jay, a location scout for a movie production company. She is complacently married to Alt, who has just been diagnosed with a grave illness and gone back to his palatial family home, back to the care of his parents. Which is just fine with Jay—or so she tells herself at the start. But standing left of center in this still-prosperous but mortally wounded family does not get easier as the weeks wear on. As she tries to negotiate her way around the anger of Saunders, Alt’s despised twin brother; maintain her friendship with Petal, his beautiful wife; and protect what’s left of the innocence of Collie, the niece caught in the middle, Jay finds more than the Louisiana heat oppressive.
With her trademark biting humor and breathtaking facility with minimalist language, Mary Robison, author of the award-winning Why Did I Ever, sets the stage for a beguiling Southern Gothic sure to delight her fanatical following and new readers alike.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With a laconic voice and a despairing sense of humor, film location scout Eve Broussard narrates award-winning Robison's (Why Did I Ever) grim yet witty novella about the dissolution of a family and a city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Eve and unstable-but-armed Petal are married to 42-year-old twins, Adam and Saunders, who—not unlike the two black swans forever circling the statue commemorating their sister's suicide—spin their nearly identical lives aimlessly: drinking, fretting over hepatitis C and hording cocaine in their parents' stately New Orleans mansion. This family's Big Easy is a world where lush excess and harsh deprivation work side-by-side to create a malaise sinister in its paralyzing appeal. Told in terse, numbered passages, Robison's narrative is jumpy but effective, interspersed with and informed by startling statistics (More than 50 former NOPD officers are in prison, 2 on death row). Distilled episodes of mistaken identity, marriage trouble and potential infidelity build to a crucial decision for Eve, who may be damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. (Mar.)
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From The New Yorker

Robison could work for a food or drug packager: she squeezes dire warnings into tiny spaces. Her new novel, at a hundred and sixty-six pages, broken into two hundred and twenty-five numbered chapters, recounts an unkempt marriage between Eve, a movie location scout, and the dying Adam; her ongoing affair with Adam’s twin brother, Saunders; her concerns for a mental-patient in-law, Petal; and car trips with a doltish intern-colleague, Lucien. And then there are lists, quoting gun-holster catalogues, private promises (“I’m never again wearing anything bought at Lowe’s”), and late news about post-Katrina New Orleans (“The rate of Armed Robbery is up 1,022 percent”), where all this is coming down. The book can be read in half an afternoon, leaving plenty of room for afterthoughts about Robison’s funny and heartbreaking conversations, which run short because both sides can barely contain their impatience or intelligence or high (both ways) private style.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint (March 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582433054
• ISBN-13: 978-1582433059
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 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: #819,980 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth the wait, May 1, 2009

By 

Jacob R. Clark (Columbus, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: One D.O.A., One on the Way: A Novel (Hardcover)

The book was set originally for publication in spring 2005, then Katrina hit, apparently sending Ms. Robison back to the galleys (I know because I've had an Amazon availability alert for this since at least that time). It's arguable that any novel set in today's New Orleans can avoid at least a passing nod at the catastrophe. Ms. Robison has artfully woven the disaster into her narrative, but just enough so the reader knows it's there, ever omnipresent.

Otherwise, "One D.O.A...." is vintage Robison: full of arch humor, absurdist situations, subtly revealed characters, searing imagery and punch-in-the gut dialogue.

It's a quirky ride through the backwaters of post-Katrina New Orleans and the mindset it has apparently left in its wake.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love New Orleans, April 6, 2009

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L. DAmbra (Providence, RI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: One D.O.A., One on the Way: A Novel (Hardcover)

I spent part of my misspent youth in New Orleans, came out alive, and this book really captures the chaotic, hedonistic sadness that New Orleans, even before Katrina, is to me. I loved it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Funkadelic!!, April 13, 2010

By 

Francesca B. Nadzam "Indianny Franny" (Indiana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: One D.O.A., One on the Way: A Novel (Paperback)

One D.O.A. and One on the Way had to be one of the most interesting books I've read in a while. I found the style riveting, but it certainly is not for everyone. If you are a quick thinker, like to read stories about people who one would not necessarily meet very often, unless they had some very idiosyncratic friends, this would be a book for you. The characters are compelling and I couldn't wait to see what would happen next. It was almost written in a puzzle that you had to put together.