The Great Wide Open

*All families are secret societies. Realms of intrigue and internal warfare, governed by their own rules…* It’s 1980s New York. Heady, excessive times, Alice Burns — a young book editor — is deep into a manuscript about the morass of family life. The observations resonate, perhaps because she has just watched her own family implode. As she reads she wonders : When did the sadness start? And could it be that unhappiness is a choice? Thus begins a great American epic which follows Alice as she navigates high school bullying, fist love and sexism at an elite college, a spell in 1970s Ireland, and a tragedy that sends her stateside as the US embraces a cowboy actor named Reagan. But it is also the tale of her endlessly complex parents and brothers; how their destinies are written by the lies they themselves and others. *The Great Wide Open* is an immensely ambitious and compulsive saga; a novel which will speak volumes to anyone who has marvelled at that pain that can only be caused by family itself.

Year

2019

Language

English

Publisher

Arrow

Editions

21

Pages

592

ISBN

9780099585220

Data source: Wikidata