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    A Floating Life: A Novel
    Unavailable
    A Floating Life: A Novel
    Unavailable
    A Floating Life: A Novel
    Ebook265 pages3 hours

    A Floating Life: A Novel

    By Tad Crawford

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    This novel of “magic realism, blended with quirky, surreal humor…should appeal to readers with a taste for the literary and the strange.”—Booklist
     
    In A Floating Life, a novel “in the lineage of Borges, Castañeda, and Philip K. Dick” (Kenneth Goldsmith), a nameless narrator who has reached a certain age is not quite consigned to leaving his youthful illusions behind. In fact, his reality is starting feel a little fractured. Following a harrowing job interview in a steam room, he finds himself at a party with a complete stranger who happens to be his wife. Soon, he is threatened by a litigious dachshund, and finds himself occupying the penthouse of a building buried underground and saddled with a stubborn case of erectile dysfunction. In a world that seems held together by increasingly mercurial laws and elusive boundaries, he finds work in an out-of-the-way shop called The Floating World.
     
    Here, an elderly Dutch model maker named Pecheur toils over model ships. And here, enlivened by Pecheur’s dream to tame the destructive forces of nature, the narrator begins to find his bearings.
     
    Written with ominous humor and fearless invention, this tale of a midlife crisis takes readers “through [a] fantastical saga…like Odysseus’s voyage without homecoming, like Dante’s tour without a guide or a Beatrice, Crawford’s narrator recounts his amazing adventures in a mesmerizing diction of long-suffering cool”(Nelson W. Aldrich Jr.).

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateAug 6, 2012
    ISBN9781611458275
    Unavailable
    A Floating Life: A Novel
    Author

    Tad Crawford

    Tad Crawford, author of Legal Guide for the Visual Artist (Allworth Press, Fifth Edition, September 2010), has served as general counsel for the Graphic Artists Guild, lobbied on the state and federal level for artists’ rights, and taught art law at the School of Visual Arts. The publisher for Allworth Press, he lives in New York City.

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    Reviews for A Floating Life

    4.5/5

    6 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Speaking (or writing) as of the mythic, the absurd, the strange, or the monstrous can often be apt choices when trying to effectively illustrate one's ideas about things that are pedestrian, commonplace, and/or so normal as to avoid frequent examination. Such styles must be carefully employed to reveal specific truths by a writer who really knows what he's about. Tad Crawford knows what he's about and employs surrealism as well as good old-fashioned whimsy and weirdness to give the reader insight into the psychological journey of an ordinary man.

      Also, you should know this book is full of wit -- don't worry about a narrative voice that takes itself too seriously to enjoy with this book. I was smiling uncontrollably by the beginning of the second chapter. Speaking of that chapter, one thing that bothered me is how clever I found the protagonist to be at improvising during his "job interview" (this is right at the beginning of the book -- no spoiler). I envy his skills; I know so much more in job interviews and am so much slower on my feet. Stop shaming me, Tad Crawford!

      At least I don't pretend to be a novelist because Tad would make me a downright disgrace in that line of endeavor with this amazing book to measure my efforts against! I recommend this to all without reservation; it's as fun and smart as one could wish an unknown book to be.

      BTW, I read this book as part of the Goodreads First Reads program.
    • 5/5
      Readers eager to explore a world beyond the ordinary need look no further.This really is a fantastic accomplishment.If you loved the delightful creepiness of The Twilight Zone, the weirdness of Fringe and wish to expand your collection and enjoyment with something that manages to stay pretty strong throughout and different from the normal, run of the mill stories, then you will definitely want to add this to your collection.