Upstate
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
Upstate is a funny, moving family drama from one of the world’s most influential literary critics.
‘Thoughtful and though-provoking’ Financial Times
Alan Querry, a successful property developer from the north of England, has two daughters: Vanessa, a philosopher who lives and teaches in Saratoga Springs, NY, and Helen, a record company executive based in London. The sisters never quite recovered from their parents’ bitter divorce and the early death of their mother, with Vanessa particularly affected, and plagued by bouts of depression since her teenage years.
When she suffers a new crisis, Alan and Helen travel to Saratoga Springs. Over the course of six wintry days in upstate New York, the Querry family begins to struggle with the questions that animate this profound and searching novel: Why do some people find living so much harder than others?
Rich in subtle human insight, and vivid with a sense of place, Upstate is a perceptive, intensely poignant novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Critic Wood's second novel (after The Book Against God) is the intriguing, restrained story of Alan Querry, who, in the last days of the second Bush presidency, is summoned by his confrontational older daughter, Helen, from his comfortable home in Northumberland to Saratoga Springs, N.Y. His younger daughter, Vanessa, is a philosophy professor there. Vanessa's much-younger husband has begun to worry that Vanessa's depression has become unmanageable. Alan also meets up with Helen, a powerful Sony record executive. Helen and Vanessa have always been opposites, differently damaged by their parents' divorce. Now the family faces crisis as they debate questions of "spiritual sadness," ask whether happiness is as inevitable as unhappiness, and struggle to achieve an overdue d tente. Wood is at his best when he lets himself go, allowing Alan, whose daughters find him "kind, self-contained, a bit detached," to complain about modern technology or note the subtle differences between U.S. and U.K. life, or when the narrative allows for Wood to hold forth on popular music and European philosophy; the critical bursts are stronger than the story beats. Though the novel might be a little too careful, it remains a strong performance.
