The Hundred Brothers
A Novel
ISBN10: 031266219X
ISBN13: 9780312662196
Trade Paperback
208 Pages
$18.00
CA$23.50
There's Rob, Bob, Tom, Paul, Ralph, and Noah; Nick, Dennis, Bertram, Russell, and Virgil. The doctor, the documentary filmmaker, and the sculptor in burning steal; the eldest, the youngest, and the celebrated "perfect" brother, Benedict. In Donald Antrim's mordantly funny novel The Hundred Brothers, our narrator and his colossal fraternity of ninety-eight brothers (one couldn't make it) have assembled in the crumbling library of their family's estate for a little sinister fun. Executed with the invention and intelligence of Barthelme and Pynchon, Antrim's taxonomy of male specimens is in equal proportions disturbing and absurdly hilarious.
Reviews
Praise for The Hundred Brothers
"A fiercely intelligent writer . . . This is a bravura nightmare."—The New York Times
"The author's surreal vision is both imaginative and wholly his own . . . A striking literary discovery."—The Boston Globe
"Elegant, outrageously imagined, comic . . . Antrim exaggerates his narrator into hilarious existence."—The New Yorker
"A fantasy that capers between atavistic ritual and inspired slapstick."—Time
"The plot, of course, is secondary here: What matters is Antrim's ability to keep an impossible concept spinning, to come up with more and more outrageous variations, and he does exactly this in a wonderfully calm and assured manner. Few writers can match his inventiveness or his determination to remind us that the best fiction can be simply about the pleasure that comes from the free play of the imagination. Another unique work from the most delightfully idiosyncratic of young American writers."—Kirkus Reviews
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
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MY BROTHERS Rob, Bob, Tom, Paul, Ralph, Phil, Noah, William, Nick, Dennis, Christopher, Frank, Simon, Saul, Jim, Henry, Seamus, Richard, Jeremy, Walter, Jonathan, James, Arthur, Rex, Bertram, Vaughan, Daniel, Russel, and Angus; and the triplets...