Model Home

Zusatztext “Puchner is an extraordinarily talented writer... a master of mood and tone, able to make moments of pure hilarity follow heartbreak with the seamlessness of real life.” -- Boston Globe Informationen zum Autor Eric Puchner is the author of the story collection Music Through the Floor , a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award; the novel Model Home , which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction; a second short story collection, Last Day on Earth; and a second novel, Dream State . His short stories and personal essays have appeared in GQ , Granta , Tin House , Best American Short Stories, and more. He has received an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is an associate professor in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and lives in Baltimore with his wife, the novelist Katharine Noel, and their two children. Klappentext Warren Ziller moved his family to Southern California in search of a charmed life, and to all appearances, he found it: a gated community not far from the beach, amid the affluent splendor of the 1980s. But the Zillers’ American dream is about to be rudely interrupted. Warren has squandered their savings on a bad real estate investment, which he conceals from his wife, Camille, who misreads his secrecy as a sign of an affair. Their children, Dustin, Lyle, and Jonas, have grown as distant as satellites, too busy with their own betrayals and rebellions to notice their parents’ distress. When tragedy strikes, the Zillers are forced to move to Warren’s abandoned housing development in the desert. In this comically bleak new home, each must reckon with what’s led them there and who’s to blame—and whether they can summon the forgiveness needed to hold the family together. With penetrating insights into modern life and an uncanny eye for everyday absurdities, Eric Puchner delivers a wildly funny, heartbreaking, and thoroughly original portrait of an American family. Leseprobe CHAPTER 1 Two days after his car—an ’85 Chrysler LeBaron with leather seats and all-power accessories—vanished from the driveway, Warren Ziller crept past the expensive homes of his neighbors, trying to match his dog’s limp. Buggy Whip Lane was shrouded in a mist that blurred his glasses. It was June, month of foggy mornings; vines of bougainvillea climbed the telephone poles and hung like tinsel from the wires. Warren tugged at Mr. Leonard’s leash, trying to keep to the narrow horse trail skirting the road. The wood chips at his feet sent up a pleasing funk of manure. He passed the Hathaways’ and Wongs’ and Dunkirks’, the Temples’ and Starchilds’, each house white as a tooth, distinguished only by a lone cactus or bronze deer in the yard or surfboard tipped against the wall. There was something very appealing about these surfboards. They looked doomed and precarious but never seemed to fall over. He’d lived here three years and the sight of them still gave him a thrill. When he tried to define California to himself, to reckon the fathomless miles he’d traveled from Wisconsin, Warren always thought of these beautiful toys on the verge of collapse. Mr. Leonard stopped along the trail to inspect a rock and began to sing to it. A high, sorrowful croon, as if he might coax the thing into a duet. The mutt was old and arthritic, but it had never occurred to Warren that his mind might deteriorate. As dogs went, he’d always been bright and resourceful, sniffing out lost shoes or figuring out how to open doors with his paws. “Have you noticed anything funny about Mr. Leonard?” Warren asked when he got home. His children were sitting around the kitchen table together, most likely by accident. The house smelled of McDonald’s and bare feet. Mr. Leonard limped to his bowl and stared at his meager ration of kibble...

Product details

• Authors: Eric Puchner
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 14.09.2010
• EAN: 9780743270496
• ISBN: 978-0-7432-7049-6
• Dimensions: 136 mm x 204 mm x 22 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature