"Turbulent...furiously compelling." Janet Maslin, New York Times
Carol Edgarian's astonishing and eagerly awaited second novel is a grand love story and a dazzling social chronicle of turbulent America today.
Charlie Pepper and Lena Rusch live in San Francisco in a modest pink bungalow they cannot afford. On the hill above them sit the great houses of the rich, with their servants and gardens and glorious views of the bay. Charlie and Lena grew up believing they could have it all — sex, love, marriage, children, career, brilliance. Now, in early middle age, life has delivered surprises and tests—a stillborn twin, an economic crash, a ruthless rival in Charlie’s business, and a seductive lover from Lena’s past.
"In this gorgeously written, haunting and often hilarious novel, Carol Edgarian conjures a particular moment in America's recent history and unleashes within it a collision of universal forces: love, desire, ambition, loyalty. I can't think of a book that more viscerally evokes the gritty challenge-and casual heroism-of motherhood and marriage."
—JENNIFER EGAN, author of A Visit From the Goon Squad
Set in our time, Rise the Euphrates reaches back to 1915 Armenia when nine-year-old Casard watches the Turks slaughter her family and hundreds of other Armenians. On a death march through the desert to the Euphrates River, the child watches her mother die and experiences a betrayal so profound that she forgets her name.
"This is a book whose generosity of spirit, intelligence, humanity and finally ambition are what literature ought to be and rarely is today — daring, heartbreaking and affirmative, giving order and sense to our random lives."
—WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
Ambition. Fame. Sex. Envy. Gossip. Money. Death. They are all here, in this dazzling book of quotations—many of them previously unpublished—from the diaries, journals, and notebooks of the world s greatest writers. Arranged chronologically, from the fervent declarations of youth to the serene reflections of old age, The Writers' Life spans twenty-three countries and four centuries to observe the entire spectrum of the human condition, with particular attention to the joys and agonies of the literary endeavor. Eloquent, candid, brimming with passion, insight and wit, this boo is an invaluable resource for any writer—or for anyone seeking expert instruction in the art of being human.