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At a once vibrant communal-living property in the British countryside, back-to-basics fervor has given way to a vague discontent. A place that once buzzed with activity, from the polytunnels to the pottery shed, now functions with a skeleton crew. Founder Don Riley surveys his domain with the grim focus of someone who knows what's best for everyone - and isn't afraid to let them know. Especially when those people are related to him.
Don's wife, Freya, can't quite decide whether not liking someone anymore is enough reason to end a twenty-year marriage. So she decamps to a mud yurt in the woods to mull it over. Their seventeen-year-old daughter, Kate, enrolls in school for the first time in her life: the exotic new world of fellow teenagers and surprisingly tasty cafeteria food beckons, and she is quickly lured into the arms of a "meathead" classmate. In his sister's absence, eleven-year-old Albert falls under the spell of an outlandish new visitor to the community who fills his head with strange notions of the impending end of the world.
Faced with the task of rescuing his son from apocalyptic fantasies, his daughter from the clutches of suburbia, and his wife from her increasingly apparent desire to leave him, Don convinces himself that the only way to save the world he's created is... to throw the biggest party of his life. Will anyone show up?
From the acclaimed young author of Submarine, Wild Abandon is a strange and wonderful look at love - familial and romantic, returned and rebuffed - and the people and places we choose to call home.
"Dunthorne's debut, Submarine, was released as a film produced by Ben Stiller and became a quirky crowd favorite at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival; this second novel is primed to do the same. Think Juno or Bottle Rocket, then read the book." - Library Journal
"A fresh perspective on modern culture, peppered with colorful dialogue that keeps the story afloat." - Kirkus Reviews
"Dunthorne revels in all the indignities his back-to-the-land characters have to endure, even returning to the early '90s recession to dramatize the commune's founding. Yet the satire is disappointingly uneven, and the uniformly unpleasant characterizations leave a sour aftertaste." - Publishers Weekly
"Manages to be both tender and biting... Wild Abandon never lapses into parody, because [Joe] Dunthorne doesn't scrimp on the small moments that make a character light up... Truly laugh-out-loud hilarious." - The Independent on Sunday (UK)
"Has you wincing on [the protagonist's] behalf, page after page-turning page... Dunthorne does himself proud. [He draws] characters with real staying power." - The Evening Standard (UK)
"Sublimely enjoyable." - Metro (UK)
"Full of finely nuanced details and a restless comic energy... builds to a fine apocalyptic climax." - The Guardian (UK)
"Wild Abandon is a very funny novel, but it's not quite a comic one... There's a pathos here too... From The Tempest to The Beach, everybody loves the tale of a flawed Utopia. [Wild Abandon] subverts the genre without even seemingly trying to. And it's hilarious. What's not to like?" - The Times (UK)
"[Dunthorne is] the British Dave Eggers." - GQ
This information about Wild Abandon 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.
Joe Dunthorne's first novel, Submarine, has been translated into ten languages and made into a feature film. His debut poetry collection was published in 2010. He lives in London. You can visit his website at www.joedunthorne.com.
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