The Laments
A Novel
Meet the Laments—the affably dysfunctional globetrotting family at the center of George Hagen’s exuberant debut novel.
Howard is an engineer who dreams of irrigating the Sahara and lives by the motto “Laments move!” His wife Julia is a fiery spirit who must balance her husband’s oddly peripatetic nature with unexpected aspirations of her own. And Will is the “waif with a paper-thin heart” who is given to Howard and Julia in return for their own child who has been lost in a bizarre maternity ward mishap. As Will makes his way from infancy to manhood in a family that careens from continent to continent, one wonders where the Laments will ever belong.
In Bahrain, Howard takes a job with an oil company…
George Hagen is the author of two novels for adults. The Laments—a Washington Post bestseller and recipient of the William Saroyan International Prize for writing—has been compared to the work of John Irving and Ann Tyler and described by Publishers Weekly as "a funny, touching novel about the meaning of family." Tom Bedlam was called "a Victorian three-decker novel [that] shines with contemporary clarity and moves at the speed of The Sopranos" by the Los Angeles Times. Hagen had lived on three continents by the time he was 12. The father of three children, he now lives in Brooklyn. For more information, visit georgehagen.com.
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