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From the author of The Portrait of a Mirror, a modern tragicomedy transforms the myth of Icarus into a blazing romp through bureaucracy, B-list fame, and college basketball…
Phil is ordinary. A mid-level Washington lobbyist for a decidedly unsexy organization, unhappy in the way all mildly successful, minimally influential men are. That is until the spring of 2019, when Phil's picks for the NCAA March Madness Tournament start panning out, and heads begin to turn his way. He really may do it: predict a perfect bracket, for a billion-dollar prize.
At first, Cassandra is just along for Phil's soaring rise—she had foreseen it happening, after all. Despite moving in different circles since their shared university days and Cassandra never much liking him, she recognizes in Phil the making of a legend worthy of the highest art. What Cassandra fails to predict, though, is just how much she'd grow to care about Phil's wife, Raleigh—and that the grandest narrative arcs sometimes unfold at the steepest of personal costs.
Dazzling in its absurd comedy, Medium Rare is not only a gambol through the upper echelon, but also a shrewd examination of madness, desire, and credibility—why don't we listen when prophetic women speak? A. Natasha Joukovsky delivers a story as layered and incisive as it is high-flying fun.
"Lovers of sports, political intrigue, and mythology will enjoy deciphering characters, motives, and plot in this captivating, creative novel." —Booklist
"A. Natasha Joukovsky's delicious, multilayered novel Medium Rare muses on contemporary American culture ... A joyful satirical novel, Medium Rare follows an ordinary man's experience of extraordinary success with nuance, wit, and deep appreciation for the arts of language and storytelling." —Foreword Reviews
"Funny, propulsive, and more than a little ruthless, Medium Rare is a shrewd interrogation of the American political class, the attention economy, and the Millennial worldview's inherent contradictions. It's also tremendous fun. A. Natasha Joukovsky's prose moves along a high-speed rail of exquisite wit and incisive observation. I could not stop reading." —Liv Stratman, author of Cheat Day
"A modern comedy that unfolds in a culture of sports predictions, political gamesmanship, and Silicon Valley which still manages to say some serious and really smart things about the power of narratives, and where dumb luck can take you in a society of spectacle." —Martin Riker, author of The Guest Lecture
This information about Medium Rare was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Natasha Joukovsky is the author of The Portrait of a Mirror. Her writing has been published in Literary Hub, Electric Lit, The Common, and Still Alive. Natasha holds a BA in English from the University of Virginia and an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business.
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