The Novel

By James A. Michener

Subjects: New York Times reviewed

Description: James A Michener, America's preeminent best-selling author, takes on into a world he knows so well, the world of books, in the stunning new novel, a suspenseful contemporary story about people involved in writing and publishing. A writer, his editor, a critic, and a reader are the central characters in this absorbing story, set in a town called Dresden, in Pennsylvania Dutch country, and in New York City. Like Michener himself, Lukas Yoder is a novelist who has had a long and successful literary career. He has written what he believes is his final book. Yes when a mysterious and violent tragedy strikes his community, Yoder finds himself preoccupied by it, and inspired to write a new kind of fiction. Inside the frenetic world of publishing. Yoder's editor struggles to preserve her integrity as her firm becomes the target of a corporate takeover, and a crisis threatens Yoder's career and her own. A critic who teaches literature at a college near Dresden struggles with his feelings about Yoder's success, as his own ambitions to write fiction clash with his hopes for the work of his young students. Finally, it is a devoted reader who helps Yoder solve the frightening events that are brutalizing their community. This superb novel by America's master storyteller is filled with fascinating information about some of the enduring classic stories in world literature, as well as about writing and publishing. Rick in character, detail, and suspense, *The Novel* will delight millions of readers who are devoted to books, and to James A Michener.