NATIONAL BESTSELLER âĸÂ A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK âĸÂ âA flamboyant meditation on love in all of its absurdity and all its undeniabilityâ (The Mercury News) set during Americaâs age of innocenceâand against a backdrop of wealth and privilegeâfrom the awardâwinning author of The Tortilla Curtain
âAs romantic as it is informative, as colorful as it is convincing. Boyle combines his gift for historical re-creation with his dazzling powers as a storyteller.ââThe Boston Globe
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It is the dawn of the twentieth century when the beautiful, budding feminist Katherine Dexter falls in love with Stanley McCormick, son of a millionaire inventor. The two wed, but before the marriage is consummated, Stanley experiences a nervous breakdown and is diagnosed as a schizophrenic sex maniac. Stanley is locked up in his familyâs Santa Barbara mansion and forbidden the mere sight of womenâabove all, his wife.
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Throughout her career as a scientist and a suffragette, Katherineâs faith never waiters: that, one day, one of the many psychiatrists she hires to try to cure her husband will free him of his demons.
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Blending social history with some of the most deliciously dark humor ever written, T.C. Boyle employs his hallmark virtuoso prose to tell the story of a love affair that is as extraordinary as it is unforgettable.