Shop Categories
- Sociology of Education
- Disabilities
- Bestsellers
- Lucky Luke
- Steiner
- General AAS
- Parliamentary Practice
- Schwartz, Delmore
- Byzantine to Gothic: 500-1400
- Macintosh
- Barcelona
- 1801-1900
- Sorry I'll Read That Again
- General AAS
- Toombs, Jane
- Rivers & Lakes
- Contemporary
- Student Guides
- Neely, Barbara
- Dogs
- Structure & Properties of Earth
- Dahl, Roald
- Interface Design
- General AAS
- Middle East
- Y
- Sri Lanka
- Ullmann, Linn
- Sherman, Josepha
- Classical, Early & Medieval
- Some of our other sites:
- Books
- Clothing, Shoes and Accessories
- Baby Clothes and Accessories
- Cosmetics, Beauty Products and Fragrances
- Cellphones, Call Plans and Accessories
- Video Games
- DVDs
- Electronics, Gadgets and Computers
- Health and Personal Care
- Home and Garden
- Home DIY
- Jewelry
- Magazines and Newspapers
- Music Downloads
- Musical Instruments
- Office Equipment and Supplies
- Software and Games
- Sporting Goods
- Toys and Games
- Watches
- UK Books
- UK Video Games
- UK Home and Garden
- UK Electronics, Gadgets and Computers
- UK Baby Clothes and Accessories
- UK Software and Games
- UK Sporting Goods
- UK Toys and Games
Books : Fiction : Contemporary Fiction: 1970 Onwards : Authors A-Z : J : Jennings, Kate
-
-
Kate Jennings' first novel, Snake, was praised for combining "dry comedy" and "genuine heartbreak"; now she has used the same sweet and sour recipe in her second book Moral Hazard--but with even more raw ingredients. The heroine is thirtysomething Cath, a smiling, punning, do-gooding bien pensant who has somehow ended up in the vicious purlieus of Wall Street, dealing billions with the great white sharks of high finance. This unfeasibly high-powered employ contrasts sharply with Cath's homelife. She's married to a man 25 years her senior: "sweet Bailey, dearest Bailey... optimistic where I was pessimistic, enthusiastic where I was distrustful". This marriage is not perfect: as Cath mordantly observes "marriage is awful in its nearness. Yoked together, bound, in a three-legged race with no finishing line." Nevertheless Cath and Bailey, in their May/December way, have found a modus vivendi, a kind of happiness. Then, horribly, Bailey is diagnosed with Alzheimer's...Three chapters in we learn this terrible truth, and the rest of the book concerns Cath's desperate, affecting, sardonic, resolute ways and means of dealing with Bailey's rollercoaster ride to the inevitable--or even worse. It's not an easy journey; this is not the easiest of books. What largely rescues the whole from being a whiny or self-pitying lament is the prose: humorous, energetic, sharp, urbane and vivid. Rather like the September 11, 2001 Manhattan Jennings describes so well.--Sean Thomas
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-