The Ten-year Nap

The Ten-year Nap

by Meg Wolitzer (Author)

Synopsis

The Jane Austen of contemporary sexual politics transforms domestic fiction - this time into a compelling, compassionate and witty inquiry into the price of ambition, the value of work, issues of class, money and the meaning of motherhood. For a group of four New York friends, the past ten years have been defined by marriage and motherhood. Educated to believe that they and their generation would conquer the world, they nonetheless left high-powered jobs to stay at home with their babies. What was intended as a temporary time-out has turned into a decade. Now at forty, without professions to define them, and with children growing up, Amy, Jill, Roberta and Karen wake up to a life and a future that is not what they expected or intended. When Amy gets drawn into the ambit of a seductive and successful working mother who seems to have it all - work, love family - a lifetime's worth of concerns, both practical and existential open up.As Amy's fascination grows, the four friends are forced to confront the choices they've made in opting for stay-at-home motherhood over career, for domestic over financial responsibility. Wolitzer's narrative brilliantly juggles and manipulates the classic image of the harassed, emotionally ambivalent but dynamic working mother, against the secret satisfaction, regret and powerlessness of the stay-at-home version - and behind that their own mothers, an earlier generation who had fewer options and sometimes bigger dreams. Nothing is quite as it seems, though, and Amy faces a real-life wake-up call when the romantic images she's conjured up start to curdle, reality takes hold, and the landscape begins to shift for all of them.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Published: 07 Aug 2008

ISBN 10: 0701182709
ISBN 13: 9780701182700
Book Overview: Is there life after 'Sex and the City'? This wickedly observant, provocative, entertaining and timely novel, about ambition, money, class, motherhood, follows a group of modern women as they wake up to life ten years after giving birth...

Media Reviews
aWolitzer is as precise and rigorous an observer of social status as Tom Wolfe; she is as incisive and pitiless and clear-eyed a chronicler of female-male tandems as Philip Roth or John Updike.a
a Chicago Tribune
aVividly, satisfyingly real.a
a Entertainment Weekly (A-)
aWolitzer perfectly captures her womenas resolve in the face of a dizzying array of conflicting loyalties.a
a Washington Post
aVery entertaining. The tartly funny Wolitzer is a miniaturist who can nail a contemporary type, scene, or artifact with deadeye accuracy.a
a The New York Times
aSmart and funny.a
a Booklist
aImmensely enjoyable.a
a Miami Herald
aWise and witty.a
a Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
aEngrossing and juicy.a
a Salon
aLiberating and poignant.a
a Elle
?Wolitzer is as precise and rigorous an observer of social status as Tom Wolfe; she is as incisive and pitiless and clear-eyed a chronicler of female-male tandems as Philip Roth or John Updike.?
? Chicago Tribune

?Vividly, satisfyingly real.?
? Entertainment Weekly (A-)

?Wolitzer perfectly captures her women's resolve in the face of a dizzying array of conflicting loyalties.?
? Washington Post

?Very entertaining. The tartly funny Wolitzer is a miniaturist who can nail a contemporary type, scene, or artifact with deadeye accuracy.?
? The New York Times

?Smart and funny.?
? Booklist

?Immensely enjoyable.?
? Miami Herald

?Wise and witty.?
? Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

?Engrossing and juicy.?
? Salon

?Liberating and poignant.?
? Elle
Author Bio
Meg Wolitzer is the author of several successful novels, most recently The Wife ('has you howling with recognition - Allison Pearson) and The Position. She is married with two sons and lives in New York.