Skip to content
Responsive image
Vendor
Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Weblink
http://www.simonandschuster.com/ …

WE BEGIN OUR ASCENT

Joe Mungo Reed

A tragic, darkly funny tale of a young marriage that comes under pressure when husband (a professional cyclist), wife (a research biologist), and their one-year-old son all find themselves roped into a covert doping ring as they try, increasingly desperately, to salvage their team’s Tour de France prospects.
We Begin Our Ascent centers on a driven young couple: Sol, a professional cyclist on the cusp of being a star and Liz, a geneticist on the brink of a major discovery. They've just welcomed their first child into the world, and their bright future lies just before them - if only they can reach out and grab it. But as Liz's research slows, and as Sol starts doping to keep up with the team, their dreams grow murkier and the risks graver. Over the whirlwind course of the Tour de France, they enter the orbit of an extraordinary cast of con men who draw the young family ineluctably into the depths of an illegal drug smuggling operation. As Liz and Sol flounder to discern right from wrong, up from down, they are forced to decide: What is it we're striving for? And what is it worth?

We Begin Our Ascent dances nimbly between tragic and comic, exploring the cost of ambition and the question of what gives our lives meaning. Reed melds the powerful themes of great marital dramas like Revolutionary Road with the humor, character, and heart of a George Saunders collection. Throughout, we're treated to the brilliant literary sports-writing of modern classics like The Art of Fielding.

Joe Mungo Reed was born in London and raised in Gloucestershire, England. He studied Philosophy and Politics at the University of Edinburgh, and did an MFA in Creative Writing at Syracuse University. He has worked as an Editorial Assistant, as a teacher of English, and as a mountain bike guide in the Alps. He has a short story forthcoming in the summer issue of VQR.
Available products
Book

Published 2018-06-19 by Simon & Schuster

Book

Published 2018-06-19 by Simon & Schuster

Comments

Joe Mungo Reed's unforgettable debut novel, We Begin Our Ascent, introduces us to a powerful new literary voice - as riveting as DeLillo's or Morrison's. On the surface, this is a book about doping in the Tour de France, but it's really about marriage and masculinity, competition and loyalty, and a sense of aspiration that blooms a person open and simultaneously shuts him tight as a clamshell. I read it cover to cover in a gulp. Bravo!

A dazzling debut by an exciting and essential new talent: fast, harrowing, compelling, masterfully structured, genuinely moving. Reed is a true stylist and has, like James Salter before him, a gift for making a physical world that is very naturally imbued with rich metaphorical meaning. This novel is a heartening reminder of what happens when a keen intelligence is applied to a rarefied subject.

With cool, unerring prose, Joe Mungo Reed provides a richly detailedand, at times, comically absurdistexploration of the Tour de France that also functions as an extended metaphor for other long-term endeavors requiring stamina, ritual, and erasure of individuality for the greater good: marriage, parenting, work, life itself. Even if you don't know pelotons from pedals, We Begin Our Ascent makes its athletic microcosm vivid and exciting, and Reed is equally adept at dissecting the conflicts of the cyclist's taxed yet enlarged heart.

We Begin Our Ascent is a book for anyone who has ever wanted something a little bit too much. Joe Mungo Reed's complicated characters have moved a step beyond the right thing, and they linger at the precipice. This is a story for our time.

British Commonwealth: HarperCollins UK

Joe Mungo Reed’s A Hand on Your Back is a great debut novel, as affecting as it is smart. It gives us the particular life of competitive biking in all its fascinating complexity, delving into the visceral thrills of the race and the painful vagaries of the body in equal measure. Reed’s precision-cut sentences and darkly funny dialogue bring to mind Don DeLillo’s End Zone.

We Begin Our Ascent is both a non-stop, heart-racing ride and a sneaky-smart tour of 21st-century labor relations. If you've ever worked hard enough to vomit just for a shiny sticker, this is the book for you.