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Knopf
October 2010
On Sale: October 19, 2010
320 pages
ISBN: 1400041554
EAN: 9781400041558
Hardcover
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Fiction
From one of America’s most acclaimed literary figures (“an
important as well as brilliant novelist”—The New York Times
Book Review) a major new novel that hilariously takes the
pulse of our times. The unforgettable voyager of this dark comic journey is I.
B. “Berl” Pickett, M.D., the die of whose uncharmed life was
probably cast as soon as his mother got the bright idea to
name him after Irving Berlin. The boyhood insults to any
chance of normalcy piled on apace thereafter: the
traumatizing, spasmodic spectacle of Pentecostalist Sunday
worship; the socially inhibitory accompaniment of his
parents on their itinerant rug-shampooing business; the
undue technical advancement and emotional retardation that
ensued from his erotic initiation at the hands of his aunt.
What would have become of this soul had he not gone to
medical school, thanks to the surrogate parenting of a local
physician and solitary bird hunter? But there is meaning to life beyond professional
accreditation, even in the noblest of callings. Berl’s been
on a mission to find it these past few years, though with
scant equipment or basis for hope. Hard to say (for the
moment anyway) whether his mission has been aided or set
back by his having fallen under suspicion of negligent
homicide in the death of his former lover. All the same,
being ostracized by virtually all his colleagues at the
clinic gives him something to chew on: the reality of
small-town living as total surveillance more than any
semblance of fellowship, even among folks you’ve known your
whole life. Fortunately, for Berl, it doesn’t take a village. And he
will find his deliverance in continuing to practice medicine
one way or another, as well as in the few human connections
he has made, wittingly or not, over the years. The
landscape, too, will furnish a hint in what might yet prove,
if not a certifiable epiphany, a semi-spiritual awakening in
I. B. Pickett, M.D., the inglorious but sole hero of Thomas
McGuane’s uproarious and profound exploration of the threads
by which we all are hanging.
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