After the Fall: A Novel
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"This is a wonderful, forever book." —George Booth, cartoonist for The New Yorker
After the Fall introduces us to a brilliantly eccentric family from New York’s Upper East Side. Pops, a self-made millionaire, is a mad inventor who gleans his inspiration from popovers and Raquel Welsh. Mother is a fabulously dressed but mercurial socialite from Buenos Aires whose weapon of choice is a croquet mallet. Young Alan, our earnest and studious narrator, and his drama-queen little sister, Alex, love their parents but must turn to their good-natured housekeeper and cook for a better sense of reality.
One fateful day, Alan returns home to find that the family has gone bust, not even a penny to be found. The next morning, to the children’s surprise, the family wakes up in Central Park along with the entire contents of their penthouse arranged just as before—art, furniture, pugs, and all. Aided by their two loyal housekeepers and fed by the maitre d’ from their favorite restaurant, the family makes Central Park into a comfortable and creative home.
But soon the strains of life—and the weather, which is getting chilly—threaten to tear apart the parents’ marriage. As the holiday season approaches, the children rise to the challenge of bringing their family back together.
With more than two hundred drawings and featuring kimono-clad squirrels and a visit by a Yeti, this delicious tale is a love letter to family, creativity, and New York.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
What's remarkable about the New Yorker cartoonist Roberts's illustrated novel is the whimsy and timelessness she maintains throughout the narrative and drawings, given that the story follows a wealthy family's loss of fortune. They go to bed one night in their Upper East Side apartment and awake the following morning in Central Park, everything from their apartment "in its usual place, only out-of-doors, with trees growing in the middle." The story is told through the eyes of 10-year-old Alan, who describes in quirky detail his inventor father, dramatic Argentine mother, and younger Sis, who spends her time staging Shakespeare and Beckett. Making the park habitable are their servants who live for their telenovelas Pop's inventions, and some colorful two- and four-legged friends. But when the weather turns cold and Mother rides off on horseback with another man, they go on a quest to find her. Pop's fantastical inventions, like the HOP (Horn of Plenty), which creates food out of fumes from favorite restaurants, allow them to live in playful comfort and may remind readers of Eloise and The Phantom Tollbooth. A wonderful children's story for adults, with all the fanciful Manhattan-centric aspects that entails. Illus.