Description
In OUT OF WEDLOCK, Jess Freeman, a facial plastic surgeon who refashions the identities of others, knows little of his own identity. Who are his biological parents and could they be the source of his sudden trances, when he drifts off into visionary worlds, by turns radiant and nightmarish? Reality checks-quick bops on the head-are administered by his nurse during delicate surgeries. But fumbling Jess pulls off a superb makeover of a severely injured patient, with a stunning sequel.
Set in Greenwich Village and Santa Fe from 1989 to 2008, Jess's romantic misadventures echo perils of the heart endured in the days of Edna St. Vincent Millay and D. H. Lawrence, the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies, and today's hookup culture. But Jess and his close companions more than endure; whatever their fates, they are sustained by a group loyalty anchored in pluck, buoyancy, and affection. This is a novel of charmed human acts-from feasting and parading to sailing and dancing to yearning and loving to seeking roots and chasing jackrabbits. All these are brought within a brisk narrative of startling recognitions that prove transformative for Jess Freeman and his intimates.
"I read
Out of Wedlock at one go, sitting down in the morning to give it a try and not getting up until early evening, when, with a deep sigh of satisfaction, I read the final line. With a plot as screwy as its characters, it charges ahead with manic energy. With all the fun you're having, you may not be prepared for how deeply
Out of Wedlock will end up moving you. Lockridge is our Voltaire and
Out of Wedlock is his
Candide."Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of
The Mind-Body Problem, Betraying Spinoza, and
Plato at the Googleplex; MacArthur Fellowship, National Humanities Medal
About the Author
LARRY LOCKRIDGE is a writer living in New York City. Professor Emeritus of English, New York University, and a Guggenheim Fellow, he is best known for the award-winning biography of his father, "Shade of the Raintree: The Life and Death of Ross Lockridge, Jr.," author of "Raintree County." "The Woman in Green" is the last of four standalone yet interrelated, novels, "The Enigma Quartet," to be published by Iguana Books. It was launched January 5, 2023, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the 1948 publication of "Raintree County," to which it is indirectly an homage.
MARCIA SCANLON, painter, sculptor, and poet, has studios in Soho and upstate New York. She has been represented by John Stoller, Gettler-Paul, Maxwell Davidson, Central Booking, and GarveySimon. Her artwork is in personal, corporate, library, and museum collections here and abroad. Recent imagery in drawing, watercolor, and sculpture draws on the works of Sappho, Baudelaire, Mendeleev, and Joyce.
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