The World According To Garp meets American Beauty in this dazzling first novel, a tragi-comedy about family life, love and identity that spans several decades and three continents (taken Richard and Judy's site on Channel4)
When Howard and Julia Lament secretly adopt Will, a baby switched at birth in a bizarre hospital debacle, it marks the beginning of a journey that takes them from Rhodesia to the Middle East, Britain to the New Jersey suburbs – for no matter where the Laments set up home, the grass always seems greener on the other side of the ocean. As the Laments discover that living somewhere doesn’t necessarily mean belonging there, Will grows up struggling with his sense of identity in the shadow of his anarchic twin brothers, Julius and Marcus. Yet when disillusion and mishap threaten to tear his family apart, it is Will who fights to hold them together.
'George Hagen's highly entertaining debut novel features an irresistibly headstrong family, a global sweep, and not only a sense of loss and displacement that's perfectly in tune with the world we live in but also a full measure of resilient humanity.' Gary Shteyngart
'Immensely readable, funny, and touching - a complete joy.' Elizabeth Strout
'A fine novel, about family, migration, identity and the struggle to find and hold onto it. It is also hugely entertaining and very, very funny.' Roddy Doyle
Author
About George Hagen
George Hagen was born in 1958 in Harare, Zimbabwe, and later moved to Northern Rhodesia, the London suburbs, and New Jersey. He studied film at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and spent several years in Los Angeles as a screenwriter. He lives in New York City with his wife and three children.
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