Cover Image

Lonesome lies before us : a novel

by Lee, Don, 1959-

Format: Print Book 2017
Availability: Available at 4 Libraries 4 of 4 copies

Available (4)
Location Collection Call #
CLP - Allegheny Fiction FICTION Lee
Location  CLP - Allegheny
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FICTION Lee
 
 
CLP - Main Library First Floor - Fiction Stacks FICTION Lee
Location  CLP - Main Library
 
Collection  First Floor - Fiction Stacks
 
Call Number  FICTION Lee
 
 
Northland Public Library Fiction FIC LEE
Location  Northland Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC LEE
 
 
Pleasant Hills Public Library Adult Fiction Fic Lee
Location  Pleasant Hills Public Library
 
Collection  Adult Fiction
 
Call Number  Fic Lee
 
 

Summary
Yadin Park is a talented alt-country musician whose career has floundered--doomed first by his homely looks and lack of stage presence and then by a progressive hearing disorder. His girlfriend, Jeanette Matsuda, might have been a professional photographer but for a devastating heartbreak in her teens. Now Yadin works for Jeanette's father's carpet-laying company in California while Jeanette cleans rooms at a local resort.When Yadin's former lover and musical partner, the celebrated Mallory Wicks, comes back into his life, all their most private hopes and desires are exposed, their secret fantasies about love and success put to the test.Drawn to the music of indie singer-songwriters like Will Johnson, who helped shape the lyrics in this book, Don Lee has written a novel that unforgettably captures America's deepest yearnings. Beautifully sad and laced with dark humor, Lonesome Lies Before Us is a profound, heartfelt romance, a soulful and memorable song.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "Like much of the author's work (Wrack & Ruin, 2008), Lee's latest novel is set in the fictional town of Rosarita Bay, California, and concerns the daily lives of ordinary people there. Yadin Park is an alt-country singer-songwriter, filling in the time in the midst of his failing career as a carpet installer. This is a very knowing novel, as credible about carpeting as it is about music but also about Meniere's disease, the hotel business, and much else, all figuring in the story and all carefully described. Yadin and his girlfriend, Jeanette, the daughter of his boss, Joe Matsuda, are at the center of the tale; they share the experience of living with failed or failing dreams. She once hoped to be a photographer but is now a housekeeper at a resort where Mallory Wicks, a traditional-country-music star (and former girlfriend of Yadin), turns up and rekindles thoughts of a bigger life. The bittersweet conclusion and the subtle depiction of ordinary people will remind many readers of Willy Vlautin, especially his similar Northline (2008).--Levine, Mark Copyright 2017 Booklist"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "Lee's well-written but uninspiring fifth book (after The Collective) follows Yadin Park and Jeanette Matsuda, residents of Rosarita Bay, Calif., as they enter middle age. Yadin, retired from a career as an alt-country singer/songwriter, installs carpet for a living. His girlfriend, Jeanette, who once dreamed of becoming a documentary photographer, cleans rooms at a fancy resort,. Yadin's secret desire to make one more album threatens their relationship, as do his medical and financial woes, Jeanette's coolness toward him, their lingering feelings for former lovers, and the municipal and state politics that disrupt their community. Lee depicts his characters with an impressive commitment to detail and backstory. He renders their workdays with long sections full of vivid minutiae and reveals their pasts a little at a time, demonstrating how their families, obsessions, and tragedies have influenced their worldviews. Lee writes with stirring eloquence about the regret and longing both characters struggle to master. In too many places, however, the prose descends into knotted, passive phrasings; the use of detail at times suffocates; and brand names disrupt the flow. When Jeanette fears that Yadin is cheating on her with another woman, for instance, she wonders: "Was he... naked on the Rivolta Carmignani sheets, rutting into her on the Sealy Posturepedic Plush?" The plot builds to a dramatic climax that it then declines to deliver. The unsatisfying ending and awkward writing ultimately undo the initial promise of the novel's compelling protagonists. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved."

Additional Information
Subjects Country musicians -- Fiction.
Hearing disorders -- Fiction.
Romance fiction.
Publisher New York :W.W. Norton & Company,2017
Edition First edition.
Language English
Description 335 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN 9780393608816
0393608816
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