A Wonderful Stroke of Luck
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A Wonderful Stroke of Luck by Ann Beattie
A Good Housekeeping Best Book of the Year"Every sentence shines with wit, originality, and sharp observations."
--The Boston Globe
A razor-sharp, deeply felt novel about the complicated relationship between a charismatic teacher and his students, and the secrets we keep from those we love
At a boarding school in New Hampshire, Ben joins the honor society led by Pierre LaVerdere, an enigmatic, brilliant, yet perverse, teacher who instructs his students not only about how to reason, but how to prevaricate. As the years go by, LaVerdere's covert and overt instruction lingers in his students' lives as they seek some sense of purpose or meaning. When Ben feels the pace of his life accelerating and views his intimate relationships as less and less fulfilling, there seems to be a subtext he's not able to access. And what, really, did Bailey Academy teach him?
While relationships with his stepmother and sister improve, and a move to upstate New York offers respite from his anxiety about love and work, LaVerdere's reappearance in his life disturbs his equilibrium. Everything he once thought he knew about his teacher--and himself--is called into question. Written by one of our most iconic writers, known for casting a cold eye on her generation's ambivalence and sometimes mistaken ambition, A Wonderful Stroke of Luck is a keenly observed psychological study of a man who alternates between careful driving and hazardous risk taking, as he struggles to incorporate his past into the vertiginous present.
Ann Beattie's work has appeared in four O. The Best American Short Tales of the Century, edited by John Updike, and Jennifer Egan's The Best American Short Stories 2014. She won the PEN/Malamud Prize for achievement in the short story in 2000. She won the Rea Prize for Short Fiction in 2005. She was the University of Virginia's Edgar Allan Poe Professor of Literature and Creative Writing.
She belongs to the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her husband, Lincoln Perry, and she split their time between Maine and Key West, Florida.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780525557364 |
| ISBN 10 | 0525557369 |
| Title | A Wonderful Stroke of Luck |
| Author | Ann Beattie |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Penguin Putnam Inc |
| Year published | 2020-04-07 |
| Number of pages | 288 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |