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LAKE LIFE

David James Poissant

An ornithologist, a physicist, a pharmaceuticals rep, a painter, an elementary school teacher, and a man who can't hold down a job: these are the Starlings.

Brought together for a last week at the beloved family lake house now up for sale, three couples witness a tragedy and soon question that which they've long called happiness. LAKE LIFE is an unflinching look at marriages both open and closed, work in the 21st century, and the not-so-nuclear American family. The much-anticipated debut novel by the author of the acclaimed story collection, THE HEAVEN OF ANIMALS published by Simon & Schuster in 2014. He is currently at work on a novel, which is also forthcoming from Simon & Schuster. David James Poissant's stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Chicago Tribune, Glimmer Train, The New York Times, One Story, Playboy, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and in the New Stories from the South and Best New American Voices anthologies. His writing has been awarded the Matt Clark Prize, the George Garrett Fiction Award, the RopeWalk Fiction Chapbook Prize, the GLCA New Writers Award, and the Alice White Reeves Memorial Award from the National Society of Arts & Letters, as well as awards from The Chicago Tribune and The Atlantic Monthly and Playboy magazines. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of Central Florida and lives in Orlando with his wife and daughters.

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Book Published 2020-07-07 by Simon & Schuster

Comments

David James Poissant's first novel is a model of how to render the souls of his many equally delineated and dramatized characters. It's the complex story of contemporary adults, each dealing with a brand of loss: of children, of youth, of self-control, and of destiny. LAKE LIFE portrays the limits of family life, and the language is stirring. Nothing's left out: addiction, hope dashed, grasping need, lasting bonds that fray and yet hold even under the pressure of the currently fracturing by our maddening times. The members of the Starling circle have their long-kept secrets that ultimately are revealed, not so much in moments of redemption as of resignation and dignity. Quietly sincere faith here is demonstrably beautiful. The last few pages are heartbreaking and true, lilting and swooping, dark and light, wry and touching.Michael Carroll, winner of the 2015 Sue Kaufman Prize and author of Little Reef and Stella Maris.

LAKE LIFE is an absolute wonder. By turns tender and wrenching, gorgeous and haunting, it explores what can emerge from the wake of tragedy and the depths of love. David James Poissant is a writer of the highest order, and this stunning novel is one his readers will never forget.

LAKE LIFE is a beautifully written, expertly told novel about family and tragedy and love and loss. I was gripped from the very first page, and wanted desperately to know what would become of the Starling family and their lives. David James Poissant captures so beautifully the tangled love between parents and children, and how that love evolves and unfolds over time. That kind of love is not without consequence, and Poissant explores with dazzling prose and insight just how maddening and hopeful the bonds of family can be. LAKE LIFE was a page-turner--I read it in one long sitting, resentful of interruption--and when it ended I mourned the absence of the Starling parents and children and their spouses, and wished them well. I loved this book.

Poissant is a writer who knows us with such clarity that we wonder how he found his way so easily into our hearts and souls.