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Free Press
March 2008
On Sale: May 3, 2008
288 pages
ISBN: 0743291298
EAN: 9780743291293
Hardcover
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Fiction
From the author of the critically acclaimed story
collection How This Night Is Different comes a dark,
arresting, fearlessly funny story of one young woman's
terminal illness. In The Book of Dahlia, Elisa Albert walks
a dazzling line between gravitas and irreverence, mining an
exhilarating blend of skepticism and curiosity, compassion
and candor, high and low culture.
Meet Dahlia Finger: twenty-nine, depressed, whip-smart,
occasionally affable, bracingly honest, resolutely single,
and perennially unemployed. She spends her days stoned in
front of the TV, watching the same movies repeatedly,
like "a form of prayer." But Dahlia's so-called life is
upended by an aggressive, inoperable brain tumor. Stunned and uncomprehending, Dahlia must work toward
reluctant emotional reckoning with the aid of a
questionable self-help guide. She obsessively revisits the
myriad heartbreaks, disappointments, rages, and regrets
that comprise the story of her life -- from her parents'
haphazard Israeli courtship to her kibbutz conception; from
the role of beloved daughter and little sister to that of
abandoned, suicidal adolescent; from an affluent childhood
in Los Angeles to an aimless existence in the gentrified
wilds of Brooklyn; from a girl with "options" to a girl
with none -- convinced that cancer struck because she
herself is somehow at fault. With her take-no-prisoners perspective, her depressive
humor, and her extreme vulnerability, Dahlia Finger is an
unforgettable anti-heroine. This staggering portrait of one
young woman's life and death confirms Elisa Albert as
a "witty, incisive" (Variety) and even "wonder-inducing"
writer (Time Out New York).
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