Speedboat (NYRB Classics)

Winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, this is one of the defining books of the 1970s, an experimental novel about a young journalist trying to navigate life in America. One of the most acclaimed novels of the late 20th century.When Speedboat burst on the scene in the late ’70s it was like nothing readers had encountered before. It seemed to disregard the rules of the novel, but it wore its unconventionality with ease. Reading it was a pleasure of a new, unexpected kind. Above all, there was its voice, ambivalent, curious, wry, the voice of Jen Fain, a journalist negotiating the fraught landscape of contemporary urban America. Party guests, taxi drivers, brownstone dwellers, professors, journalists, presidents, and debutantes fill these dispatches from the world as Jen finds it. "Speedboat belongs to a genre of ‘70s women’s fiction, in which a damaged, smart woman floats passively yet stylishly through the world, a genre which includes books like Elizabeth Hardwick’s Sleepless Nights, and Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays. In all of these Smart Woman Adrift novels, there is a radical fragmentedness, a supremely controlled tone, a shrewd and jaded observation of small things, a comic or wry apprehension of life’s absurdities, and pretty yet melancholy vignettes of the state of being lost." - Kathy Roiphe, SlateOriginally published serially in The New Yorker, it is made out of seemingly unrelated vignettes - tart observations distilled through relentless intellect — which add up to an analysis of our brittle, urban existence. A touchstone over the years for writers as different as David Foster Wallace and Elizabeth Hardwick, Speedboat returns to enthral a new generation of readers. Winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, this is one of the defining books of the 1970s, an experimental novel about a young journalist trying to navigate life in America. When Speedboat burst on the scene in the late ’70s it was like nothing readers had encountered before. It seemed to disregard the rules of the novel, but it wore its unconventionality with ease. Reading it was a pleasure of a new, unexpected kind. Above all, there was its voice, ambivalent, curious, wry, the voice of Jen Fain, a journalist negotiating the fraught landscape of contemporary urban America. Party guests, taxi drivers, brownstone dwellers, professors, journalists, presidents, and debutantes fill these dispatches from the world as Jen finds it. A touchstone over the years for writers as different as David Foster Wallace and Elizabeth Hardwick, Speedboat returns to enthrall a new generation of readers. It Has Been More Than Thirty-five Years Since Renata Adler's Speedboat, Winner Of The Ernest Hemingway Award For Best First Novel, Charged Through The Literary Establishment, Blasting Genre Walls And Pointing The Way For A Newly Liberated Way Of Writing. This Unclassifiable Work Is Simultaneously Novel, Memoir, Commonplace Book, Confession, And Critique. It Is The Story Of Every Man And Woman Cursed With Too Much Consciousness And Too Little Comprehension, And It Is The Story Of Jen Fein, A Journalist Negotiating The Fraught Landscape Of Contemporary Urban America. Her Voice Is Searching, Cuttingly Perceptive, And Darkly Funny As She Breaks Narrative Convention To Send Dispatches Back From The World As She Finds It-- Castling -- Quiet -- Brownstone -- Speedboat -- Islands -- What War -- The Agency. Renata Adler ; Afterword By Guy Trebay. One of the most acclaimed novels of the late 20th century is back. Speedboat burst on the scene in the late ’70s it was like nothing readers had encountered before. It seemed to disregard the rules of the novel, but it wore its unconventionality with ease. Reading it was a pleasure of a new, unexpected kind. Above all, there was its voice, ambivalent, curious, wry, the voice of Jen Fain, a journalist negotiating the fraught landscape of contemporary urban America. Party guests, taxi drivers, brownstone dwellers, professors, journalists, presidents, and debutantes fill these dispatches from the world as Jen finds it. A touchstone over the years for writers as different as David Foster Wallace and Elizabeth Hardwick, Speedboat returns to enthrall a new generation of readers. "It has been more than thirty-five years since Renata Adler's Speedboat, Winner of the Ernest Hemingway Award for Best First Novel, charged through the literary establishment, blasting genre walls and pointing the way for a newly liberated way of writing. This unclassifiable work is simultaneously novel, memoir, commonplace book, confession, and critique. It is the story of every man and woman cursed with too much consciousness and too little comprehension, and it is the story of Jen Fein, a journalist negotiating the fraught landscape of contemporary urban America. Her voice is searching, cuttingly perceptive, and darkly funny as she breaks narrative convention to send dispatches back from the world as she finds it"-- Provided by publisher. A series of vignettes which follow the life and travels of Jen Fain, a beautiful and intelligent journalist