New Yorker book critic and award-winning author James Wood
delivers a novel of a family struggling to connect with one another and
find meaning in their own lives.
In the years since his daughter Vanessa moved to America to become a
professor of philosophy, Alan Querry has never been to visit. He has
been too busy at home in northern England, holding together his business
as a successful property developer. His younger daughter, Helen--a music
executive in London--hasn't gone, either, and the two sisters, close but
competitive, have never quite recovered from their parents' bitter
divorce and the early death of their mother. But when Vanessa's new
boyfriend sends word that she has fallen into a severe depression and
that he's worried for her safety, Alan and Helen fly to New York and
take the train 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? Is happiness a skill that might be learned or a cruel accident
of birth? Is reflection conducive to happiness or an obstacle to it? If,
as a favorite philosopher of Helen's puts it, "the only serious
enterprise is living," how should we live? Rich in subtle human insight,
full of poignant and often funny portraits, and vivid with a sense of
place, James Wood's Upstate is a powerful, intense, beautiful novel.
