Normals by David Gilbert
Twenty-eight-year-old Harvard-educated Billy Schine finds himself suddenly without prospects - a balled-up bit of litter riding the boom of New York in the nineties. His classmates make millions on Wall Street and the Internet while Billy must make do with a series of temp jobs. He has a girlfriend, Sally Hu, but they are a couple only by default. Then Billy receives a letter from a collection agency, seeking satisfaction on three years of unpaid student loans. Death is mentioned as an alternative to payment. Now every passer-by is a potential hit-man, and Billy has to flee. Providence delivers Hargrove Anderson Medical, a pharmaceutical company looking for perfectly healthy 'normals' to participate in Phase I studies of their latest experimental drugs. So Billy signs up for a fourteen-day trial of a new atypical anti-psychotic for the treatment of schizophrenia ...Through the sharp-eyed, self-doubting Billy, David Gilbert exposes the crisis of the contemporary human condition: how to connect? As funny as it is profound, The Normals is a tour de force.
"'The Normals is relentlessly intelligent and fully aware of the scope and contradictions of contemporary cultureIt is also a very good read, and an experience you'll want to stretch out as long as you can.' Douglas Coupland"
David Gilbert is the author of the short story collection Remote Feed. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, GQ and Bomb. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780571196548 |
| ISBN 10 | 0571196543 |
| Title | Normals |
| Author | David Gilbert |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Faber & Faber |
| Year published | 2005-03-17 |
| Number of pages | 384 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |