Here’s your chance to win a free, signed copy of Joshua Henkin’s just-out-in-paperback novel, MATRIMONY. All you need to do is email your
--Name
--Mailing address
--Subject line: MATRIMONY
to me, before NOON EST on Friday, September 19, 2008. One random winner will be selected to receive the book.
My extremely-trustworthy-book-recommender friend, novelist Katharine Davis,* recently read MATRIMONY and had this to say:
“I came across Joshua Henkin’s novel, Matrimony, in the new fiction section of my public library. I had a vague recollection of having read a good review of this book, and from the first page to the last, I was not disappointed. Matrimony is one of those rare books that is literary in its depth and complexity, and at the same time is an old-fashioned sweep of a good story that you don’t want to put down.
“Henkin’s novel combines both humor and tragedy. I laughed out loud while reading a scene about “Peer Contraceptive Counselors” who wore PCC badges and greeted freshman with goody bags of flavored spermicide on the first day of college. The novel also has poignant moments when the author writes about life-threatening illnesses without becoming “Oprah-esque.” Best of all Henkin creates characters who are at times appealing, maddening, annoying, and yet loveable.
“Matrimony carries these characters through the spoiling haze of undergraduate life, graduate school angst, and the daunting struggle toward responsible adulthood. Included in this journey is a brilliant portrayal of teachers of writing, writers, and the writing life that writers, in particular, won’t want to miss.
“Matrimony is about marriage when it works, and when it doesn’t. It is also a novel about friendship and betrayal and how relationships change and endure over time. In its essence, Joshua Henkin gives us a rich story about love –how we seek it, how we find it, and how it endures. He does this in prose so clear and elegant that makes you forget you are even reading. Having discovered this book in the library, a free and unexpected pleasure, I plan to buy Henkin’s first novel, Swimming Across the Hudson, while impatiently awaiting his next book.”
If you don’t believe her, you can check out this glowing review in the New York Times Book Review: "Beguiling.... [Henkin write] effortless scenes that float between past and present. [He creates] an almost personal nostalgia for these characters."--Jennifer Egan, The New York Times Book Review
Or this one, also from the New York Times:
"Mr. Henkin writes with a winningly anachronistic absence of showiness....This is just a lifelike, likable book populated by three-dimensional characters who make themselves very much at home on the page."--Janet Maslin, The New York Times
*More about Katharine Davis: Katharine Davis began writing fiction in 1999. Capturing Paris (St. Martin’s Press, May 2006) was her first novel. Recommended in Real Simple Spring Travel 2007, the novel was also included in the New York Times (8-8-06) suggestions for fiction set in Paris. Her second novel, East Hope, will be published by New American Library in February 2009. She is an Associate Editor at The Potomac Review. She can be reached at www.katharinedavis.com.
Special thanks to Joshua Henkin for this great offer!