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Gain: A Novel Paperback – September 29, 2009

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Richard Powers (Author)
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4.1 out of 5 stars 56 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Picador; Reprint edition (September 29, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312429096
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312429096
  • Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.1 x 8.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,004,493 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsPowers' American tragic vision ranks with Fitzgerald's
By A Customer on August 3, 1999
Format: Paperback
Serious American novelists are compelled to confront certain questions: what is right about America? What is wrong with us? A select company of writers are distinguished by their ability to recognize that the answers to these questions are virtually identical. I am thinking about Dreiser, Fitzgerald and, now, Richard Powers. In Gain, Powers tells two stories in one, one historical and one contemporary: the first tells of the seemingly irresistible rise of Clare, a multi-national corporation; and the second examines the life of a working mother afflicted with ovarian cancer -- a disease evidently caused by chemicals released by Clare's manufacturing processes. The book reads somewhat like a novelistic rendering of Hardy's poem "The Convergence of the Twain." Like the iceberg and liner in Hardy's work, heroine and corporation are on a collision course plotted by human vanity and outraged nature. As in the very best of classical tragedies, the action seems both sadly unnecessary and starkly inevitable. As the soap-selling business of the Clare brothers gathers momentum, one feels both the thrill of its financial triumph and the horror of the humam cost its growth exacts. In this novel, the conditions of American society enable characters to conceive great visions and to pursue them with courage and enthusiasm. At the end of the day, however, they cannot escape either their mortality or the prosaic, banal truth of their existence. Did so many brave, intelligent people labor and die just so that the heroine's teenage son can play video wargames in the comfort of a suburban bedroom? It is troubling, Powers suggests, that all our hopes and strivings should take us no further than this. Even-handedly, however, Powers shows us the benefits of industry as well as its dark side.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsSimply a Fantastic Novel
By Manny on June 7, 2000
Format: Paperback
I was looking for something different when I picked up "Gain", something other than the shopworn "coming of age" literary novel I seem to keep reading over and over, and boy did I find it. Skeptical at first (I'm not a fan of either business or terminal illness books) "Gain" soon won me over with Powers solid writing (piled a little thick in places but overall a pleasure) and the interwoven tales of Clare Soap and the local woman who contracts ovarian cancer allegedly from its products or factory.
Powers provides an interesting thumbnail sketch of the rise of the corporation in America, one that is light yet informative and, for the most part, accurate. This part of the book is dry in places but given the subject matter, he has to be given credit for breathing as much life as possible into an inanimate object.
His treatment of Laura and her family was warm and resonating, however. Too much of her struggles probably would have been too much for me to handle but by breaking it up the way he did, he made her tragic tale somewhat easier to take than would otherwise have been the case.
Towards the end I started wondering how this was going to wrap up. I was anticipating the obvious: the big courtroom trial, verdict and either vindication or pathos but what Powers did instead was brilliant. I won't divulge it here but his ending brought both narratives together in a way that was completely unexpected.
I don't know what novel the people who criticized it for being leftist and "anti-corporation" were reading, but it certainly wasn't "Gain". Rather, I felt that Powers showed us all sides of the corporation-the good, the bad and the ugly, and left it to us to draw our own conclusions.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 stars�People want everything. That�s their problem.�
By taking a rest HALL OF FAME on September 18, 2000
Format: Paperback
I have not read all of the books that Mr. Powers has written. This is the fourth, and while the writing is not as complex, with each subsequent phrase attempting to make its predecessor seem inferior, he has created a book that begins with two stories widely separated in time and brings them together with final pages that are emotionally devastating.
The wealth of knowledge this Author is known for is again evident in "Gain". The difference this time is that he shows an understanding of the human condition, its pain and its suffering as though he experiences the trauma as he writes. He writes about an experience we all will face, and it reads as though it is documented fact, not some mystic farce substituted for weak writing that lacks the skill that Mr. Powers has. His writing does not read as opinion, it feels as though you are reading the truth, that you are being told by someone who knows, and not just an authority on the topic, an articulate dandified product of academe, an erudite poser.
A man and his wife arrive in Boston. Over a century later the son of another woman, working across the river in Cambridge, will take the money from a legal outcome that is a direct result of that first man's arrival, and likely set in motion events that are orders of magnitude more powerful. It could be argued that the moment the first man decided to emigrate, the countless number of steps, the cascade of effects were irrevocably put in motion.
This tale could be dressed up as a form of Chaos Theory, the Butterfly in China whose delicate movements cause the East Coast of the US to be flooded. Mr. Powers does not need a curtain that wrapped the city of the Oz Wizard to conceal what he was unable to do. If Mr.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsInventive

intricate weaving of parallel story lines

Published 5 months ago by Wayne Gorder
5.0 out of 5 starsTruly Magnificent

One of our truly great writers. Story is riveting, and the writing is spectacular. Author's knowledge is profound, and the story style alternating between past and present is... Read more

Published 12 months ago by Jeremy Glass
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Typical Powers insightful and elegant

Published 16 months ago by Kirk Rogers Jr.
5.0 out of 5 starsGOOD. AUTHOR

DAMN. GOOD. AUTHOR.. I LOVED THIS BOOK IN CONCEPT, STORYLINE, CHARACTERIZATION AND EXECUTION. VERY WELL DONE.

Published 18 months ago by rwjohnson
4.0 out of 5 starsWake Up and Smell the Formaldehyde!

Thoughts on the novel Gain by Richard Powers

Gain tells two alternating stories.

The first is the journey of a woman diagnosed with Cancer. Read more

Published on November 27, 2013 by Randy Ehrler
4.0 out of 5 starsA Great Read

This is not an easy novel to read. But it is well worth the effort. The author Richard Powers is either a person who spends a great deal of time researching his subject or a... Read more

Published on October 19, 2013 by Hanan B
4.0 out of 5 starsA Strong Ending

The great thing about "Gain" is that it imagines a history without government. I don't mean a world without governance but a perspective on the sweeping changes that have brought... Read more

Published on June 10, 2013 by Randall L. Wilson
5.0 out of 5 starsGain a Review

If I don't write this post/review right now, tonight, I will never write it. It has been festering beneath my skin, down near my bones for a little over a week. Read more

Published on July 18, 2011 by Jabiz Raisdana
2.0 out of 5 starsA wasteland

This is a very dissapointing book by Richard Powell.It traces a history of a company up into the age of corporations, then pollution and the possible high incident of cancer caused... Read more

Published on May 22, 2011 by D. Nash
5.0 out of 5 starsThe Faustian Pact

Very disturbing themes, and brilliantly written. having recently discovered powers through his first novel, I was gratified to meet this work without the reservations of the... Read more

Published on March 10, 2009 by Rodney J. Moss

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