Book details

The Coast of Akron

A Novel

Author: Adrienne Miller

The Coast of Akron

The Coast of Akron

$11.99

About This Book

"At last, The Coast of Akron! Adrienne Miller is one of the wittiest and most humane writers we have, bringing to mind at once Dorothy Parker, Mary McCarthy, and M.F.K. Fisher."...

Page Count
400
On Sale
05/16/2006

Book Details

"At last, The Coast of Akron! Adrienne Miller is one of the wittiest and most humane writers we have, bringing to mind at once Dorothy Parker, Mary McCarthy, and M.F.K. Fisher." -Dave Eggers

Adrienne Miller, in her dazzlingly ambitious and hilarious first novel, introduces us to the unforgettable Haven family of Akron, Ohio. This is not your typical Midwestern family, and Lowell Haven is a most unusual patriarch. He's a seducer, a wannabe aristocrat, a liar. Jenny, his former wife, was a brilliant artist, but is today a broken woman with a secret.

In the thirty years since Lowell and Jenny met, Lowell has become a world-famous artist, known for portraits of his favorite subject-himself. But five years ago, Lowell mysteriously stopped painting and the world now demands to know: Why has Lowell Haven abandoned his art? The answer is Merit, Lowell and Jenny's daughter, who is running as fast as she can from her family. Fergus, Lowell's partner, Jenny's ex-best friend, and drama queen extraordinaire, dreams of luring Merit home: the sixty-five-room faux-Tudor mansion where he lives with Lowell. A lavish party for the Midwestern glitterati is the perfect excuse. But his delusions of grandeur loom over the gathering, and his decision to include a certain guest invites disaster.

Stretching from mid-seventies London to the present-day Midwest, The Coast of Akron is a sharply funny and deeply heartbreaking story about the all-too-human urge to own what is unownable.

Imprint Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

ISBN

9781429932158

In The News

“Dare I say it--this book has got some real muscle to it. Miller goes to the core of a wonderfully eclectic American family. At the same time she manages to serve up a swinging London, to dissect the worlds of journalism and art, and to provoke the reader with, of all things, humor. Tender, intelligent, audacious, and packing a serious wallop, The Coast of Akron will be around a long, long time.” —Colum McCann, author of Dancer

“At last, The Coast of Akron! Adrienne Miller is one of the wittiest and most humane writers we have, bringing to mind at once Dorothy Parker, Mary McCarthy, and M.F.K. Fisher.” —Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

The Coast of Akron is a novel of many delights: it's audacious and provocative, it's arousing (cf. pages 194-196, etc.) and it's hilarious. Adrienne Miller's sharply drawn characters are some very peculiar people, alternately repellant and attractive--people who are, in fact, just like you.” —Ken Kalfus

“What an incredible carnival of a novel! I can't do justice to the ingenuities of Adrienne Miller's book; it's amazing in a thousand and one different ways. Blazingly vivid, shocking, hilarious, moving, irresistibly absorbing from first page to last, with an unforgettable family at its center, The Coast of Akron is a triumph.” —Joanna Scott

About the Creators

The Coast of Akron

The Coast of Akron

$11.99