Lightning Field: A Novel
Jan 2002 · Simon and Schuster
Ebook
224
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
*A New York Times Notable Book and Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year*
From the National Book Award nominated author of Innocents and Others and Wayward, a “wonderfully funny, accomplished, and far-reaching first novel about our consumer colossus and the human products it makes and shapes” (Don DeLillo).
In her bold and lyrical first novel, Dana Spiotta evokes Los Angeles as a land of Spirit Gyms and Miracle Miles, a great centerless place where chains of reference get lost, or finally don't matter.
Mina lives with her screenwriter husband and works at her best friend Lorene's highly successful concept restaurants, which exploit the desires and idiosyncrasies of a rich, chic clientele. Almost inadvertently, Mina has acquired two lovers. And then there are the other men in her life: her father, a washed-up Hollywood director living in a yurt and hiding from his debtors, and her disturbed brother, Michael, whose attempts to connect with her force Mina to consider that she might still have a heart—if only she could remember where she had left it.
Between her Spiritual Exfoliation and Detoxification therapies and her elaborate devotion to style, Lorene is interested only in charting her own perfection and impending decay. Although supremely confident in a million shallow ways, she, too, starts to fray at the edges.
And there is Lisa, a loving mother who cleans houses, scrapes by, and dreams of food terrorists and child abductors, until even the most innocent events seem to hint at dark possibilities.
Lightning Field explores the language tics of our culture—the consumerist fetishes, the self-obsession, and the possibility that you just might have gotten it all badly wrong.
Playful and dire, raw and poetic, Lightning Field introduces a startling new voice in American fiction.
From the National Book Award nominated author of Innocents and Others and Wayward, a “wonderfully funny, accomplished, and far-reaching first novel about our consumer colossus and the human products it makes and shapes” (Don DeLillo).
In her bold and lyrical first novel, Dana Spiotta evokes Los Angeles as a land of Spirit Gyms and Miracle Miles, a great centerless place where chains of reference get lost, or finally don't matter.
Mina lives with her screenwriter husband and works at her best friend Lorene's highly successful concept restaurants, which exploit the desires and idiosyncrasies of a rich, chic clientele. Almost inadvertently, Mina has acquired two lovers. And then there are the other men in her life: her father, a washed-up Hollywood director living in a yurt and hiding from his debtors, and her disturbed brother, Michael, whose attempts to connect with her force Mina to consider that she might still have a heart—if only she could remember where she had left it.
Between her Spiritual Exfoliation and Detoxification therapies and her elaborate devotion to style, Lorene is interested only in charting her own perfection and impending decay. Although supremely confident in a million shallow ways, she, too, starts to fray at the edges.
And there is Lisa, a loving mother who cleans houses, scrapes by, and dreams of food terrorists and child abductors, until even the most innocent events seem to hint at dark possibilities.
Lightning Field explores the language tics of our culture—the consumerist fetishes, the self-obsession, and the possibility that you just might have gotten it all badly wrong.
Playful and dire, raw and poetic, Lightning Field introduces a startling new voice in American fiction.
About the author
Dana Spiotta is the author of Innocents and Others; Stone Arabia, A National Books Critics Circle Award finalist; and Eat the Document, a finalist for the National Book Award. Eat the Document has also been made into an opera adaptation. Her most recent novel is Wayward. Spiotta is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the John Updike Prize, and the Rome Prize for Literature. She lives in Syracuse, New York.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
