With this tightly, immaculately self-contained tale set upon pillars at once imposing and of dollhouse scale, namely, academia (“College wasn’t like the real world,” Madeleine notes) and the emotions of the youngest of twentysomethings, Eugenides realizes the novel whose dismantling his characters examine. The remarkably à propos title refers to the subject of Madeleine’s honors thesis, which is the Western novel’s doing and undoing, in that, upon the demise, circa 1900, of the marriage plot, the novel “didn’t mean much anymore,” according to Madeleine’s professor and, perhaps, Eugenides. His characteristically deliberate, researched realization of place and personality serve him well, and he strikes perfectly tuned chords by referring to works ranging from Barthes’ Lovers’ Discourse to Bemelmans’ Madeline books for children. Eugenides’ drama unfolds over the next year or so. Completing a triangle is Madeleine’s friend Mitchell, a clear-eyed religious-studies student who believes himself her true intended. Only when curiosity gets the best of her does she belly up to Semiotics 211, a bastion of postmodern liberalism, and meet handsome, brilliant, mysterious Leonard Bankhead. Jeffrey Eugenides creates a new kind of contemporary love story in "his most powerful novel yet" ( Newsweek).In Eugenides’ first novel since the Pulitzer Prize–winning Middlesex (2002), English major and devotee of classic literature Madeleine Hanna is a senior at Reagan-era Brown University. As all three of them face life in the real world they will have to reevaluate everything they have learned. As Madeleine studies the age-old motivations of the human heart, real life, in the form of two very different guys, intervenes-the charismatic and intense Leonard Bankhead, and her old friend the mystically inclined Mitchell Grammaticus. But Madeleine Hanna, dutiful English major, is writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, purveyors of the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels. In American colleges, the wised-up kids are inhaling Derrida and listening to Talking Heads. "A grand romance in the Austen tradition."- USA TodayĪre the great love stories of the nineteenth century dead? Or can there be a new story, written for today and alive to the realities of feminism, sexual freedom, prenups, and divorce? "Remind us with uncommon understanding what it is to be young and idealistic, in pursuit of true love, and in love with books and ideas."-Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
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