In Zanesville
Jo Ann Beard
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
Bookshop.org has the highest-rated customer service of any bookstore in the world
Description
From the acclaimed author of The Boys of My Youth and Festival Days, a "mesmerizing... beautifully written" debut novel that evokes the wrenching, exquisite moment just before we step into adulthood (Ann Patchett). The fourteen-year-old narrator of In Zanesville is a late bloomer. She flies under the radar -- a sidekick, a marching-band dropout, a disastrous babysitter. Luckily, she has a best friend with whom she shares the everyday adventures of a 1970s American girlhood, incidents through which a world is revealed and character is forged. In time, the two girls' friendship is tested -- by their families' claims on them, by a clique of popular girls who stumble upon them, and by their first startling, subversive intimations of womanhood. With dry wit and piercing observation, Jo Ann Beard shows us that in the seemingly quiet streets of America's innumerable Zanesvilles is a universe of wonders, and that within the souls of the awkward and the overlooked often burns something radiant. "Probably my favorite novel of the year...A marvelous reading experience...I don't think I'll ever forget the unnamed, perfectly realized narrator of In Zanesville." --Nancy Pearl, NPR Product Details
Price
$16.99
$15.80
Publisher
Back Bay Books
Publish Date
April 03, 2012
Pages
320
Dimensions
5.4 X 8.2 X 0.9 inches | 0.6 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780316125277
Earn by promoting books
Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.
Become an affiliate
About the Author
Jo Ann Beard is the author of the essay collections The Boys of My Youth and Festival Days. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, The Best American Essays, and other magazines and anthologies. She has received a Whiting Foundation Award and nonfiction fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.
Reviews
"Masterfully wrought...downright hilarious and often hold-your-breath-and-hope-for-the-best suspenseful. The restraint with which Beard deploys moments of tension and humor make each page glimmer."--Samuel Reaves Slaton, O Magazine
"A fierce, funny, brave, and bracingly honest new novel....Every bit as poignant and powerful as The Catcher in the Rye."--Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune
"An exuberant first novel....Beard has a knack for melding the funny and the sad, amplifying small moments into something big."--Susannah Meadows, New York Times
"Epic and profound. These thoughtful, funny, awestruck, slightly peculiar girls are so endearing, so painfully true."--Karen Valby, Entertainment Weekly
"A sure-handed first novel ....It's impossible not to be charmed."--Yvonne Zipp, Washington Post
"A fresh comic voice and a talent for sharp familiarizing place-details."--Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal
"A fierce, funny, brave, and bracingly honest new novel....Every bit as poignant and powerful as The Catcher in the Rye."--Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune
"An exuberant first novel....Beard has a knack for melding the funny and the sad, amplifying small moments into something big."--Susannah Meadows, New York Times
"Epic and profound. These thoughtful, funny, awestruck, slightly peculiar girls are so endearing, so painfully true."--Karen Valby, Entertainment Weekly
"A sure-handed first novel ....It's impossible not to be charmed."--Yvonne Zipp, Washington Post
"A fresh comic voice and a talent for sharp familiarizing place-details."--Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal
