Dana Spiotta

Nik Worth es una superestrella del rock. Cuando tenía diez años le regalaron una guitarra, y ahora que es un cincuentón, documentar el recorrido de sus dos bandas, los Fakes y los Demonics, parece una tarea de titanes. Por no hablar del empeño que haria falta para catalogar su obra en solitario.Esto ultimo, lo de solitario, tampoco podria sermas preciso. Porque el gran publico de Nik consiste en realidad en el mismo, que sigue siendo casi tan guapo, talentoso y carismatico como en 1973, la novia de turno, su sobrina Ada, algun amigo incondicional, probablemente alcoholico como Nik (que de hecho trabaja media jornada de barman), y desde luego su hermana Denise.Nik y Denise crecieron juntos y sin demasiada supervision en medio de la escena musical underground de Los Angeles. Se tenian, sobre todo, el uno al otro. Tres decadas mas tarde, en una novela que cambia de punto de vista sin que nos demos cuenta, la voz inteligente y melancolica de Denise se confunde con la voz, o las voces, de Nik.Denise esta obsesionada por la memoria. Por el olvido. Por lo que queda cuando los otros ya no estan. Nik, en cambio, tiene otro tipo de relacion con el futuro. Y parece vivir en el pasado. Aunque sus ganas de hacer musica siempre han sido tan reales como los discos que ha grabado en su estudio del garaje.Nik nunca sacrifico lo que entendia por arte para entrar en el sistema. Claro que el sistema tampoco le hizo un contrato. De modo que el mismo ha reescrito la historia y, obsesionado tambien con el recuerdo, en su mania ha archivado todas las reseñas, las cartas de los fans y las criticas (incluso las negativas, porque toda estrella que se precie tiene su nemesis) que ha imaginado.Parafraseando a Nik: imaginen una libertad total. Y al margen de nuestra cultura del exito, la celebridad y la autopromocion, casi acertaran.

A furious and addictive new novel (The New York Times) about mothers and daughters, and one womans midlife reckoning as she flees her suburban life.

1986. Carrie et Meadow, deux amies ayant grandi ensemble sur les collines de Los Angeles, deviennent cinéastes. L’une va se lancer dans des comédies à succès teintées de féminisme, l’autre dans la ré

RESUMEN

Juste après l’élection présidentielle américaine de 2016, la vie de Samantha Raymond commence à partir dans les décors : sa mère est malade, sa fille ado s’éloigne et, à 52 ans, elle fait l’expérienc

1986. Carrie et Meadow, deux amies ayant grandi ensemble sur les collines de Los Angeles, deviennent cinéastes. L’une va se lancer dans des comédies à succès teintées de féminisme, l’autre dans la ré

*A New York Times Notable Book and Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year*From the National Book Award nominated author of Innocents and Others and Wayward, a wonderfully funny, accomplished, and far-reaching first novel about our consumer colossus and the human products it makes and shapes (Don DeLillo).In her bold and lyrical first novel, Dana Spiotta evokes Los Angeles as a land of Spirit Gyms and Miracle Miles, a great centerless place where chains of reference get lost, or finally dont matter.Mina lives with her screenwriter husband and works at her best friend Lorenes highly successful concept restaurants, which exploit the desires and idiosyncrasies of a rich, chic clientele. Almost inadvertently, Mina has acquired two lovers. And then there are the other men in her life: her father, a washed-up Hollywood director living in a yurt and hiding from his debtors, and her disturbed brother, Michael, whose attempts to connect with her force Mina to consider that she might still have a heartif only she could remember where she had left it.Between her Spiritual Exfoliation and Detoxification therapies and her elaborate devotion to style, Lorene is interested only in charting her own perfection and impending decay. Although supremely confident in a million shallow ways, she, too, starts to fray at the edges.And there is Lisa, a loving mother who cleans houses, scrapes by, and dreams of food terrorists and child abductors, until even the most innocent events seem to hint at dark possibilities.Lightning Field explores the language tics of our culturethe consumerist fetishes, the self-obsession, and the possibility that you just might have gotten it all badly wrong.Playful and dire, raw and poetic, Lightning Field introduces a startling new voice in American fiction.

From the National Book Award nominated author of Innocents and Others and Wayward, a bold and moving novel that follows a fugitive radical from the 1970s who has lived in hiding for twenty-five years and explores themes of idealism, passion, sacrifice, and the cost of living a secret.In the heyday of the 1970s underground, Bobby DeSoto and Mary Whittakerpassionate, idealistic, and in love organize a series of radical protests against the Vietnam War. When one action goes wrong, the course of their lives is forever changed. The two must erase their past, forge new identities, and never see each other again.Now it is the 1990s. Mary lives in the suburbs with her fifteen-year-old son, who spends hours immersed in the music of his mothers generation. She has no idea where Bobby is, whether he is alive or dead.Shifting between the protests in the 1970s and the consequences of those choices in the 1990s, Dana Spiotta deftly explores the connection between the two erastheir language, technology, music, and activism. Dana Spiotta, "wonderfully observant and wonderfully gifted...with an uncanny feel for the absurdities and sadness of contemporary life"(The New York Times), has written a character-driven, brilliant, and riveting portrait of two eras and a revelatory novel about the culture of rebellion, with particular resonance now.

Juste après l’élection présidentielle américaine de 2016, la vie de Samantha Raymond commence à partir dans les décors : sa mère est malade, sa fille ado s’éloigne et, à 52 ans, elle fait l’expérienc

From the National Book Award nominated author of Innocents and Others and Wayward, a smart, subtle, moving story about the complicated business of knowing the people you love (Book Forum). In the sibling relationship, there are no first impressions, no seductions, no getting to know each other, says Denise Kranis. For Denise and her brother, Nik, now in their forties, no relationship is more significant. They grew up in Los Angeles in the late seventies and early eighties. Nik was always the artist, always wrote music, always had a band. Now he makes his art in private, obsessively documenting the work but never testing it in the world. Denise remains Niks most passionate and acute audience; she is also the crucial support for Nik and for their aging mother, whose dementia seems to threaten her own memory. When Denises daughter, Ada, decides to make a film about Nik, everyones vulnerabilities escalate. In Stone Arabia, Dana Spiotta explores the inner workings of celebrity, family, and other modern-day mythologies (Vogue).

Sin duda la mejor novela hasta el momento de la“inmensamente talentosa Dana Spiotta” (MichikoKakutani), autora finalista del National Book Awardestadounidense y premio del Círculo de la Crítica delmi

A furious and addictive new novel (The New York Times) about one womans midlife reckoning as she flees suburbia.

From Dana Spiotta, the author of Wayward, Eat the Document, and Stone Arabia, a brilliant novelabout female friendship, the limits of love and work, and costs of claiming your right to celebrate your triumphs and own your mistakes (ELLE).Innocents and Others is about two women who grow up in LA in the 1980s and become filmmakers. Meadow and Carrie have everything in commonexcept their views on sex, power, Hollywood, and morality. Their friendship is complicated, but their devotion to each other trumps their wildly different approaches to film and to life. Meadow was always the more idealistic and brainy of the two; Carrie was more pragmatic. Into their lives comes Jelly, a master of seduction who calls powerful men and seduces them not with sex, but by being a superior listener. All of these women grapple with the question of how to be good: a good lover, a good friend, a good mother, a good artist.A startlingly acute observer of the way we live now, Dana Spiotta has created a new kind of great American novel (TheNew York Times Magazine). Impossible to put down (Marie Claire), Innocents and Others is a sexy, painfully insightful, and strangely redemptive novel about the ways we misread one anotherwith an ending that comes at you like a truck around a blind curve and stays with you for much, much longer (Esquire).

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR A furious and addictive new novel (The New York Times) about mothers and daughters, and one womans midlife reckoning as she flees her suburban life.A virtuosic, singular and very funny portrait of a woman seeking sanity and purpose in a world gone mad. The New York Times Book ReviewRiddled with insights into aging, womanhood, and discontent, Wayward is as elegant as it is raw, and almost as funny as it is sad. Philadelphia Inquirer A comic, vital new novel. The New Yorker Samantha Raymonds life has begun to come apart: her mother is ill, her teenage daughter is increasingly remote, and at fifty-two she finds herself staring into "the Mids"that hour of supreme wakefulness between three and four in the morning in which women of a certain age suddenly find themselves contemplating motherhood, mortality, and, in this case, the state of our unraveling nation. When she falls in love with a beautiful, decrepit house in a hardscrabble neighborhood in Syracuse, she buys it on a whim and flees her suburban lifeand her familyas she grapples with how to be a wife, a mother, and a daughter, in a country that is coming apart at the seams. Dana Spiottas Wayward is a stunning novel about aging, about the female body, and about female complexity in contemporary America. Probing and provocative, brainy and sensual, it is a testament to our weird times, to reforms and resistance and utopian wishes, and to the beauty of ruins.

Spiotta is a wonder. George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the BardoMeadow Mori and Carrie Wexler grew up together in Los Angeles, and both became film-makers. Meadow makes challenging documentaries; Carrie makes successful feature films with a feminist slant. The two friends have everything in common - except their views on sex, power, movie-making and morality. And yet their loyalty trumps their different approaches to film and to life. Until, one day, a mysterious woman with a unique ability to cold-call and seduce powerful men over the phone - not through sex, but through listening - becomes the subject of one of Meadows documentaries. Her downfall, and what makes her so extraordinarily moving, is that she pretends to be someone she is not. The fallout from this challenges their friendship like nothing before.Heart-breaking and insightful, Innocents and Others by Dana Spiotta is an astonishing novel about friendship, identity, loneliness and art.

Furious and addictiveNew York TimesUrgent, deeply moving, wholly original GEORGE SAUNDERSA dazzling lightning bolt of a novel JENNY OFFILLFiercely funny and deliciously subversive YIYUN LIWayward reads like a burning fever dream. A virtuosic, singular and very funny portrait of a woman seeking sanity and purpose in a world gone madNEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW***** If theres any justice in the world, Spiottas firecracker of a novel, Wayward, will bring her the attention she very much deserves Lucy Scholes, SUNDAY TELEGRAPHSamantha Raymonds life has begun to come apart: her mother is ill, her teenage daughter is increasingly remote, and she finds herself staring into the Mids - hours of supreme wakefulness when women of a certain age contemplate their lives. For Sam, this means motherhood, mortality and the state of an unravelling nation. When Sam falls in love with a decrepit Arts and Crafts house on the wrong side of town, she buys it on a whim and flees her suburban life, attempting to find beauty in the ruins.One of the most wildly talented writers in America. This is Spiottas best book yet GEORGE SAUNDERSA slyly funny, clever and compelling story about the righteous (and rarely irrational) rage of women of a certain age SARRA MANNING, RED magazineA piercing novel about what we lose and gain by when we step out of lifes deepest worn groovesVOGUEShe writes with sly humour and utter seriousness; a rare articulation of midlife now CLAIRE MESSUDWhat begins as a vertiginous leap into hilarious rabbit holes ends as a brilliant meditation on mortality and time. How does she do it? Only Dana Spiotta knows. Im just happy to see her work her magic JENNY OFFILL

Sin duda la mejor novela hasta el momento de la "inmensamente talentosa Dana Spiotta" (Michiko Kakutani), autora finalista del National Book Award estadounidense y premio del Círculo de la Crítica del mismo pais, Inocentes y otros es la historia de tres mujeres que buscan sentido en la amistad, el trabajo y el amor. Meadow y Carrie siempre han sido amigas. Crecieron juntas en Los Angeles y con el mismo amor obsesivo por el cine. Ahora Meadow hace documentales de creacion y Carrie peliculas mas comerciales, aunque con un toque feminista. Su amistad es complicada, pero la devocion que sienten la una por la otra esta por encima de sus visiones divergentes del cine y el mundo. Y de pronto aparece Jelly, una mujer cuyas relaciones mas significativas han tenido lugar a distancia. Jelly seduce a la gente por telefono. Escuchando. Pero las tres tienen en comun la necesidad y la dificultad de ser buenas: buenas artistas, amantes, amigas, madres. Buenas personas.