The Astral

From the PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of "The Great Man," a scintillating novel of love, loss, and literary rivalry set in rapidly changing Brooklyn. The Astral is a huge rose-colored old pile of an apart-ment building in the gentrifying neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. For decades it was the happy home (or so he thought) of the poet Harry Quirk and his wife, Luz, a nurse, and of their two children: Karina, now a fer-vent freegan, and Hector, now in the clutches of a cultish Christian community. But Luz has found (and destroyed) some poems of Harry's that ignite her long-simmering sus-picions of infidelity, and he's been summarily kicked out. He now has to reckon with the consequence of his literary, marital, financial, and parental failures (and perhaps oth-ers) and find his way forward--and back into Luz's good graces. Harry Quirk is, in short, a loser, living small and low in the water. But touched by Kate Christensen's novelistic grace and acute perception, his floundering attempts to reach higher ground and forge a new life for himself become funny, bittersweet, and terrifically moving. She knows what secrets lurk in the hearts of men--and she turns them into literary art of the highest order.

About the Author :
KATE CHRISTENSEN is the author of five previous novels, most recently "Trouble." "The Great Man" won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. She has written reviews and essays for numerous publica-tions, most recently the "New York Times Book Review," "Bookforum," "Tin House," "Elle," and "Open City." She lives in New York City.

Review :
Praise for "The Astral" "A tart, compassionate story of marriage gone wrong."--"O Magazine" "Harry Quirk...makes an unexpectedly irresistible hero in this delicious social satire."--"People " "Engaging...wonderfully drawn. It's worth noting that Christensen has somehow -- again -- created a captivatingly believable male narrator, although she can't see 60 on the horizon, has not been married to a tempestuous Mexican woman for 30 years or published largely ignored poetry in academic journals. (Her previous novel, "The Great Man," won the PEN/Faulkner Award.) And yet here she is doing what talented novelists do: creating a voice so rich with the peculiar timbre of lived experience that you feel as though she's introduced you to a witty, deeply frustrated (and frustrating) new friend."--Ron Charles, "The Washington Post ""Christensen...amps up the tension, suspense, and pathos until it feels like the book could ignite in your hands. She's a spectacular author who's only beginning to get the attention she so richly deserves, such as the 2008 PEN/Faulkner for "The Great Man." Her style is unique in that her work is more based on fascinating and real--maybe too real--characters rather than upon on the same three or four basic plots we've seen a million times. And Harry Quirk is one of her greatest creations. (I will admit that I'm also quite partial to Hugo, the creepy hero of "The Epicure's Lament.") Christensen is amazing at capturing male voices and desires, particularly the ones that don't often get aired outside Philip Roth novels. I can't wait to see how Christensen's work develops over the coming decades. She has the makings of a major American author. Her storytelling derives organically from a firm grasp of characterization and how people work, flaws and all. "The Astral," artfully composed and emotionally tender, is evidence of true literary genius."--Andrew Ervin, the "Miami Herald " "The book does in f Advance Praise for "The Astral" "Like the rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn of its setting, Christensen's unremittingly wonderful latest (after Trouble) is populated by an odd but captivating mix of characters. At the center is Harry Quirk, a middle-aged poet whose comfortable life is upended one winter day when his wife, Luz, convinced he's having an affair, destroys his notebooks, throws his laptop from the window, and kicks him out. Things, Harry has to admit, are not going well: their idealistic Dumpster-diving daughter, Karina, is lonely and lovelorn, and their son, Hector, is in the grip of a messianic cult. Taking in a much-changed Greenpoint, Brooklyn, while working at a lumberyard and hoping to recover his poetic spark, Harry must come to terms with the demands of starting anew at 57. Astute and unsentimental, at once romantic and wholly rational, Harry is an everyman adrift in a changing world, and as he surveys his failings, Christensen takes a singular, genuine story Advance Praise for "The Astral" "Publisher's Weekly"(starred) "Like the rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn of its setting, Christensen's unremittingly wonderful latest (after Trouble) is populated by an odd but captivating mix of characters. At the center is Harry Quirk, a middle-aged poet whose comfortable life is upended one winter day when his wife, Luz, convinced he's having an affair, destroys his notebooks, throws his laptop from the window, and kicks him out. Things, Harry has to admit, are not going well: their idealistic Dumpster-diving daughter, Karina, is lonely and lovelorn, and their son, Hector, is in the grip of a messianic cult. Taking in a much-changed Greenpoint, Brooklyn, while working at a lumberyard and hoping to recover his poetic spark, Harry must come to terms with the demands of starting anew at 57. Astute and unsentimental, at once romantic and wholly rational, Harry is an everyman adrift in a changing world, and as he surveys his failings, Christense Advance Praise for "The Astral" "Like the rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn of its setting, Christensen's unremittingly wonderful latest (after Trouble) is populated by an odd but captivating mix of characters. At the center is Harry Quirk, a middle-aged poet whose comfortable life is upended one winter day when his wife, Luz, convinced he's having an affair, destroys his notebooks, throws his laptop from the window, and kicks him out. Things, Harry has to admit, are not going well: their idealistic Dumpster-diving daughter, Karina, is lonely and lovelorn, and their son, Hector, is in the grip of a messianic cult. Taking in a much-changed Greenpoint, Brooklyn, while working at a lumberyard and hoping to recover his poetic spark, Harry must come to terms with the demands of starting anew at 57. Astute and unsentimental, at once romantic and wholly rational, Harry is an everyman adrift in a changing world, and as he surveys his failings, Christensen takes a singular, genuine story and Praise for Kate Christensen: "Christensen is the kind of writer who's willing to say things most people don't dare to. And she knows exactly how to say them." --"Time " "[Her] characters are marvelously realized, and when Christensen's on a roll, her wit is irresistible." --"Publishers Weekly " "Christensen's writing is clear-eyed, bitingly funny, and supremely caustic about the niceties of social relations, contemporary American culture, and sexual politics." --"O, The Oprah Magazine " "Nimble, witty, and discerning, Kate Christensen is single-handedly reinvigorating the comedy of manners with her smart and disemboweling novels of misanthropes, cultural and aesthetic divides, private angst, social ambition, and appetites run amok." "--Chicago Tribune " "Kate Christensen is a serious writer: Don't be fooled by the relentless hipness or what seems full-throttle frivolity of her subject matter--the joke, if you don't get it, is on you." --"