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This novel, a New York Times Notable Book, offers funny and occasionally devastating ''portraits of humanity...as beautifully mundane and unique as a fingerprint'' (Entertainment Weekly ). E ''Wonderful...the work of a fluid, confident and profoundly talented writer.'' -Dave Eggers E A highly inventive and corrosively funny story of our times, Want Not exposes three different worlds in various states of disrepair-a young freegan couple living off the grid in New York City; a once-prominent linguist, sacked at midlife by the dissolution of his marriage and his father''s losing battle with Alzheimer''s; and a self-made debt-collecting magnate, whose brute talent for squeezing money out of unlikely places has yielded him a royal existence, trophy wife included. Want and desire propel these characters forward toward something, anything, more, until their worlds collide, briefly, randomly, yet irrevocably, in a shattering ending that will haunt readers long after the last page is turned. E ''An impassioned work of fiction.'' - Dallas Morning News
About the author
JONATHAN MILES's first novel,
Dear American Airlines, was named a
New York Times Notable Book and a Best Book of the Year by the
Los Angeles Times and the
Wall Street Journal. A former columnist for the
New York Times, he serves as a contributing editor to magazines as diverse as
Field & Stream and
Details, and writes regularly for the
New York Times Book Review and
The Literary Review (UK). A former longtime resident of Oxford, Mississippi, he currently lives with his family in rural New Jersey.
Summary
A New York Times Notable Book, Want Not offers funny and occasionally devastating “portraits of humanity…as beautifully mundane and unique as a fingerprint.” (Entertainment Weekly)
“Wonderful…the work of a fluid, confident and profoundly talented writer.” —Dave Eggers
A highly inventive and corrosively funny story of our times, Want Not exposes three different worlds in various states of disrepair—a young freegan couple living off the grid in New York City; a once-prominent linguist, sacked at midlife by the dissolution of his marriage and his father’s losing battle with Alzheimer’s; and a self-made debt-collecting magnate, whose brute talent for squeezing money out of unlikely places has yielded him a royal existence, trophy wife included. Want and desire propel these characters forward toward something, anything, more, until their worlds collide, briefly, randomly, yet irrevocably, in a shattering ending that will haunt readers long after the last page is turned.