by David Gates (Author)
The answer to Doug Willis' mid-life crisis is a sabbatical at his rural retreat in Preston Falls, two months spent restoring the faded splendour of the farmhouse, reading Dickens in the evening and watching summer gently fade to autumn. But following a marathon whiskey drinking session, a disastrous attempt to tear out the living room ceiling and an incident with a sheriff at a local campsite, Willis ends his first weekend away in jail, and it's clear the wired, burned-out New York copy-writer within is still very much to the fore. And while Willis' wife Jean struggles to pay the bills and raise their sullen, sceptical kids, Willis' 'break' crumbles into Dewars- and Cocaine-fuelled disarray, and he embarks on another kind of journey altogether.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 352
Edition: New
Publisher: Phoenix
Published: 04 Jan 2001
ISBN 10: 0575403179
ISBN 13: 9780575403178
Book Overview: Preston Falls confirms David Gates as a master of sharp observation, dark truths and private longings - a writer in the tradition of Russell Banks and Richard Ford 'Beautifully written ... Gates [has a] pitch-perfect ear for contemporary speech ... and a keen, journalistic eye' New York Times 'What gives Preston Falls its jittery buzz, and its intelligence and charm, is Gates' ever-sharp ear for dialogue, for the wisecracks and half-veiled hostilities that pass for communication' People 'A fierce and gleefully perverse account of mid-life crisis ... An apocalyptic satire that reminds us why his previous novel, Jernigan, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize' Arena 'David Gates makes me sick with envy' Nick Hornby