But in Guy's case, the legend is one of betrayal and infamy. For the scandal of his embezzlement brought down the delicately balanced structure of the Stock Exchange. The long-honored system of self-government by mutual trust among gentlemen came to an end with the default of one of its brightest stars.The story of Guy's fall is told by the three persons most intimately concerned: Guy himself, Rex Geer, his closest friend, and Angelica, his wife. We see him first through his own eyes — embittered, oddly proud of his peculiar distinction, and entirely unrepentant — the golden boy, the Wall Street manipulator, and finally the old man determined to justify himself to the grandchildren he will never see.Rex and Angelica in turn pick up the same threads of the story, but the threads change color subtly as they pass through different hands. In the end, the reader must decide for himself which is the real Guy Prime.Louis Auchincloss brings to the financial world the same authority and understanding he brought to the worlds of the law (Powers of Attorney), the private school (The Rector of Justin), and the old families of New York (Portrait in Brownstone). Virgilia Peterson, writing in the New York Times Book Review, called The Rector of Justin "not only a passionately interesting, but a spiritually important study of the American character of, and for our time." Her words hold true for The Embezzler.

    In prose of astonishing clarity and intensity, Agee captured the portrait of an appealing and very real boy - serious, pitiable, funny - at the moment of his initiation into a feared yet fascinating world.

    Summering at her country home in Maine, Katherine Congreve is afraid John Shipley's son will blame her for his father's approaching divorce.

    Infused with Elkin's signature wit and richly drawn characters, The Bailbondsman, The Making of Ashenden, and The Condominium, are the creations of a literary virtuoso at the pinnacle of his craft.

    

    Combining interrelated novels, stories, and novellas, Dixon's multilayered and frequently hilarious family epic—the story of Howard Tetch, his ancestors, his parents, his children, and the generations that follow—"reassures us that whatever is precious can never be completely lost" (The Baltimore Sun).

    If one half of the characters live their secret, interior lives apart from society, then the other half are looking for their own ways out: drugs, murder, revolution, betrayal, and infidelity.

    The past: the suicides of his father, wife and daughter, the murder of his son-in-law, a brutal rape, and subsequent mutiny at sea. The present: caring for his granddaughter on a "northern" island where he works as an artificial inseminator of cows, and attempts to reclaim the innocence with which he faced the tragedies of his earlier life. Combining unflinching descriptions of suffering with his sense of beauty, Hawkes is a master of nimble and sensuous prose who makes the awful and mundane fantastic, and occasionally makes the fantastic surreal.

    So it doesn’t go unnoticed when a dark-haired stranger appears on his bicycle and begins photographing the mourners at Mrs. Connulty’s funeral. Florian Kilderry couldn’t know that the Connultys are said to own half the town: he has only come to Rathmoye to photograph the scorched remains of its burnt-out cinema. A few miles out in the country, Dillahan, a farmer and a decent man, has married again: Ellie is the young convent girl who came to work for him when he was widowed. Ellie leads a quiet, routine life, often alone while Dillahan runs the farm. Florian is planning to leave Ireland and start over. Ellie is settled in her new role as Dillahan’s wife. But Florian’s visit to Rathmoye introduces him to Ellie, and a dangerously reckless attachment begins. In a characteristically masterly way Trevor evokes the passions and frustrations felt by Ellie and Florian, and by the people of a small Irish town during one long summer.

    On the 50th anniversary of its publication in November 1949, for which Algren was honored with the first National Book Award (which he received from none other than Eleanor Roosevelt at a ceremony in March 1950), Seven Stories is proud to release the first critical edition of an Algren work.A novel of rare genius, The Man with the Golden Arm describes the dissolution of a card-dealing WWII veteran named Frankie Machine, caught in the act of slowly cutting his own heart into wafer-thin slices. For Frankie, a murder committed may be the least of his problems.The literary critic Malcolm Cowley called The Man with the Golden Arm Algren's defense of the individual, while Carl Sandburg wrote of its strange midnight dignity. A literary tour de force, here is a novel unlike any other, one in which drug addiction, poverty, and human failure somehow suggest a defense of human dignity and a reason for hope.Special contributions by Russell Banks, Bettina Drew, James R. Giles, Carlo Rotella, William Savage, Lee Stringer, Studs Terkel, Kurt Vonnegut, and others.

    In this charming, fading Gaelic village, Kate quickly develops a bond with members of the local lace-making society: Bernie, alone and yearning for a new purpose since the death of her beloved husband, John; Aileen, plagued by doubt, helplessly watching her teenage daughter grow distant; Moira, caught in a cycle of abuse and denial, stubbornly refusing help from those closest to her; Oona, in remission from breast cancer, secretly harboring misgivings about her marriage; Colleen, the leader of the group, worried about her fisherman husband, missing at sea. And outside this newfound circle is local artist Sullivan Deane, an enigmatic man trying to overcome a tragedy of his own.Under Glenmara's spell, Kate finds the inspiration that has eluded her, and soon she and the lace makers are creating a line of exquisite lingerie. In their skilled hands, flowers, Celtic dragons, nymphs, fish, saints, kings, and queens come to life, rendered with painterly skill. The circle also offers them something more—the strength to face their long-denied desires and fears. But not everyone welcomes Kate, and a series of unexpected events threatens to unravel everything the women have worked so hard for. . . .

    But the beauty of this novel is the gradual revelation of the bond that develops as this unlikely couple experiences courtship and marriage, the birth of a son, isolation, forgiveness, work, and death in a small Catskill community in the 1950s. The plot turns on tragic events—they might be accidents or they might be acts of will—involving a cast of rural eccentrics that includes a lonely amputee veteran, a religious hysteric (thought by some to be the devil himself) and an itinerant "Goat Lady." Questions of guilt, innocence, and even murder are eclipsed by deeds of compassion, humility, and redemption, and ultimately by Henry Soames' quiet discovery of grace.Novelist William H. Gass, a friend and colleague of the author, has written an introduction that shines new light on the work and career of the much praised but often misunderstood John Gardner.

    Jessica will break their hearts. Leonie will fall in love with the wrong man. Mary Jo will escape to New York. And wild child Mathy's fate will be the family's greatest tragedy. Over the decades they will love, deceive, comfort, forgive—and, ultimately, they will come to cherish all the more fiercely the bonds of love that hold the family together.

    It falls to the Doyles' eldest daughter, Anna, to decide how best to commemorate her parents' Silver Wedding. No use asking her sister Helen, living in her London convent, or her brother Brendan, who has chosen another form of exile on a bleak farm in the West of Ireland.But it is unthinkable not to have a party, even though for the Doyles, family occasions are more difficult than for most. For each of them is keeping up a front, nursing a secret wound, or smarting over a hidden betrayal. And as the day draws nearer, so the tension mounts, until finally the guests gather at the party itself...

    William Styron traces the betrayals and infidelities—the heritage of spite and endlessly disappointed love—that afflict the members of a Southern family and that culminate in the suicide of the beautiful Peyton Loftis.