Once again, TEV readers get to benefit from our ineptitude. Via some combination of addlemindedness and sheer disorganization, we've ended up with two copies of Anne Enright's Man Booker Prize winning novel The Gathering. (Somehow, we didn't remember receiving a copy, so we went out and supported our local bookstore, only to return home to find our advance copy, sent to us by the kind folks at Black Cat.) The book probably requires no introduction to you, but just in case, here is what AL Kennedy had to say about it for the Guardian:
And, of course, The Gathering isn't a simple thing at all - it's a genuine attempt to stare down both love and death, to anatomise their pains and fears and peculiar pleasures. At which point I ought to talk about the sheer physicality of Enright's writing. The one word roar recurs though the text, as if to remind us of the din within each of her characters: strangers meet in a hotel and share the presence of potential nakedness without a touch; Liam's thirst for alcohol rages while Veronica's pads along behind her through insomniac nights; a moustache can barely be noticed before its description moves on to the idea of tickled thighs. Sex - for Enright, as for John Banville - is a kind of gleefully appalling slapstick that dogs humanity and leaves it betrayed. This is a world where fidelity is impossible and sex is absurd, but love is forever, like a scar. And it isn't only sex that works on the body - death is both a comfort and a rapist. The fear and bewilderment it brings the living echo through flesh, and Enright is unflinching as she documents all the physical symptoms of emotion and memory. Bones and words always lurk under the skin, equally stark and disturbing.
You gotta love the Banville comparison, right? So, we all know the steps to this dance. Drop us an email, subject line "SLAPSTICK DOGS" and, as ever, you must include your full mailing address or else, you know, we'll just get annoyed. Yes, we'll ship to international winners. Previous winners remain ineligible. We'll take entries until 10 p.m. PST at which point the Random Number Generator will do its deed.
UPDATE: We always like it when the RNG selects someone who's been trying for a while. Congratulations to Susannah Butters of Chapel Hill!
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