Wise Men: A Novel

Wise Men: A Novel

Stuart Nadler

Stuart Nadler

Almost overnight, Arthur Wise has become one of the wealthiest and most powerful attorneys in America. His first big purchase is a simple beach house in a place called Bluepoint, a town on the far edge of the flexed arm of Cape Cod.It's in Bluepoint, during the summer of 1952, that Arthur's teenage son, Hilly, makes friends with Lem Dawson, a black man whose job it is to take care of the house but whose responsibilities quickly grow. When Hilly finds himself falling for Lem's niece, Savannah, his affection for her collides with his father's dark secrets. The results shatter his family, and hers.Years later, haunted by his memories of that summer, Hilly sets out to find Savannah, in an attempt to right the wrongs he helped set in motion. But can his guilt, and his good intentions, overcome the forces of history, family, and identity?A beautifully told multigenerational story about love and regret, Wise Men confirms that Stuart Nadler is one of the most exciting young writers at work todayReviewPRAISE FOR WISE MEN:"Wise Men reads like a classic; it is a completely engrossing novel, one that scars the reader's heart in the most satisfying way. In confident, unpretentious prose, Nadler tackles the complexity of racial tension and fifties mores in a manner reminiscent of Harper Lee and Carson McCullers, and in a smart, misses-nothing style that summons comparisons to Salinger and Cheever. Hilton Wise is a winsome and compelling narrator, one you'll find yourself rooting for days after finishing the book. Nadler's deft rendering of place, namely a secluded compound in coastal Massachusetts, allows the reader to become completely lost in Hilly's world. Wise Men is, at its core, a brutal love story, full of surprise and conviction, insight and deception, staggering wealth and loss, truth and beauty." (Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of BIRDS OF A LESSER PARADISE )"Wise Men is a brilliantly plotted and carefully observed novel that takes the reader deep inside a powerful family's most guarded secrets. An epic saga about a son's need to atone for the sins of his father and the sins of his own troubled youth. The driving heart of this ambitious novel is an impossible romance: one worth risking an entire outrageous fortune. With wisdom and compassion, Nadler examines the mysteries and manners of unrequited love. Wise Men confirms that Stuart Nadler is a writer of abundant talent and grace." (Amber Dermont, author of the New York Times bestseller *The Starboard Sea* )"Stuart Nadler is an elegant writer and a compelling storyteller. Wise Men explores the big questions in life---love and money and race and identity---in a story packed with secrets, longings, and obsessions. It is not a book to be missed." (Vanessa Diffenbaugh, author of the New York Times bestseller *The Language of Flowers* )"Stuart Nadler's first novel zooms and dips like an airplane with a trick pilot, one in complete control of his loop-de-loops. I have no doubt that Stuart Nadler is going to be one of our great novelists, and it all starts here, on a dune in Cape Cod, with the Wise men. These characters--knotted together with obligation, guilt, and love--will stay with me always." (Emma Straub, author of OTHER PEOPLE WE MARRIED and LAURA LAMONT'S LIFE IN PICTURES ) About the AuthorStuart Nadler is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he was awarded a Truman Capote Fellowship and a Teaching-Writing Fellowship. Recently, he was the Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin. His fiction has appeared in The Atlantic. He is the author of the story collection The Book of Life.
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The Inseparables

The Inseparables

Stuart Nadler

Stuart Nadler

Crisis is looming for three generations of the Olyphant family. In less than a year, Henrietta has lost her husband and nearly all of her money, and is about to lose her hard-won anonymity. After a lifetime spent trying to outrun the humiliation her own book caused her, Henrietta has reluctantly agreed to a reissue of The Inseparables, the salaciously filthy and critically despised bestseller she wrote decades earlier.At the same time, her daughter, Oona, has moved back home to the house that Henrietta needs to sell. Oona is in the middle of a divorce from her husband, Spencer, a corporate-law refugee, stay-at-home dad, and unapologetic stoner. And Oona's teenage daughter, Lydia, away at boarding school, is facing an onslaught of scrutiny and shame when a nude photo of her goes viral. The trouble only gets worse: Henrietta makes an upsetting discovery about her late husband; Oona embarks on a disastrous affair;...
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