Shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2014.
Paul O’Rourke is a New York dentist who admits to passions for baseball and one or two women. A bogus website is set up in his name and in trying to uncover the perpetrator he meets another ‘victim’. The group, an ancient sect, running the website, a hoax Facebook page and many email exchanges and tweets are called the Ulm, enemies of Jews, so the postings become very anti-Semitic. This is a ridiculous situation that gets progressively worse as Paul meddles and tries to resolve things. Paradoxically, in doing so, he seems able to make sense of his life. It is the sort of tale that would make a good TV sitcom, no thrills, no cliff hangers or excitement, just good fun, spot on observations and excellent writing.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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Shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2014.
Joshua Ferris' dazzling new novel To Rise Again at a Decent Hour is about the meaning of life, the certainty of death, and the importance of good oral hygiene. There's nothing like a dental chair to remind a man that he's alone in the world' Paul O'Rourke, 40 year-old slightly curmudgeonly dentist, runs a thriving practice in New York. Yet he is discovering he needs more in his life than a steady income and the perfect mochaccino. But what? As Paul tries to work out the meaning of life, a Facebook page and Twitter account appear in his name. What's at first an outrageous violation of privacy soon becomes something more frightening: the possibility that the online Paul might be a better version of the man in the flesh. Who is doing this and will it cost Paul his sanity? Slick, sophisticated and very funny ...has modern Everyman fighting for his identity in an increasingly impersonal world . (Daily Mail). (on Then We Came to the End). Brilliant, funny, stomach-turningly accurate . (Observer). (on Then We Came to the End). He has teased ordinary circumstances into something extraordinary, which is exactly what we want our fiction writers to do . (Economist). (on The Unnamed). Joshua Ferris was born in Illinois in 1974. He is the author of Then We Came to the End (2007), which was nominated for the National Book Award and longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, and The Unnamed. In 2010 he was selected for the New Yorker's prestigious '20 under 40' list. He lives in upstate New York.
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, eBooks of the Month, General Fiction, Fiction, Recommendations
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour is available in Paperback, Hardback
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour was written by Joshua Ferris and published by Viking an imprint of Penguin Books Ltd
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour has 352 pages
