The Great Perhaps - Hardcover

For most of the last decade, a lot of prominent fiction writers interested in establishing their realist bona fides, the relevance of their work to the way we live now, seemed to feel they had no choice but to incorporate 9/11. But Meno dares to consign it, and our response to it, to a larger historical and spiritual context, and even to suggest that there is nothing new under the sun. A few years ago that might have seemed heretical, but traditionally such farsightedness is part of a novelist's job. -- Jonathon Dee Tender, funny, spooky, and gripping, Meno's novel encompasses a subtle yet devastating critique of war; sensitively traces the ripple effect of a dark legacy of nebulousness, guilt, and fear; and evokes both heartache and wonder. -- Donna Seaman Meno's writing seems to have hit a new gear...The overall effect is one of mature mastery of form and a deepened compassion for his characters. -- Kevin Nance An affecting domestic portrait, deftly drawn. -- Taylor Antrim It's insufferable to be forced to live with a crazy family, especially when you refuse to admit your own share of the madness. Joe Meno delivers tenderness and wit to a family struggling to prop up a house of cards. -- G. Xavier Robillard, author of Captain Freedom The Great Perhaps is a darkly funny, lyrical, and shrewdly observant chronicle of a family on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Joe Meno has the rare ability to evoke mid-life melancholy and teenage angst with equal authority. -- Tom Perrotta, author of Election and The Abstinence Teacher I think The Great Perhaps is the wisest, most humane and transcendent novel on the contemporary family since The Corrections... A marvelous book. -- Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting Joe Meno's fiction has it all--humor and heart, moral gravitas, and a formal playfulness that catches you pleasantly by surprise. -- Ed Park, author of Personal Days A terrible fear of clouds, an obscure search for giant squid and a bomb-building teenage girl: Joe Meno has imagination, humor and the rare ability to make characters seem as near as your own family-sometimes almost too close for comfort. An intriguing and heartfelt book. -- Lydia Millet, author of How the Dead Dream

Meet the Caspers, a family beset by cowardice and anxiety. Jonathan is a palaeontologist, searching in vain for a prehistoric squid. His wife, Madeline, an animal behaviourist, cannot explain why the pigeons she is studying are becoming increasingly aggressive. Their older daughter Amelia is a disappointed teenage revolutionary, while their younger, Thisbe, has become a devout Christian. Meanwhile, the girls' grandfather, Henry, is slowly absenting himself from life: each day he gives away a possession and speaks one word fewer, until the time comes when he will have spoken his last ever word. Before that can happen, however, Jonathan and Madeline decide to separate - and, suddenly, each family member has to confront their fears about the world in which they live. Set in the run-up to the 2004 US presidential election, The Great Perhaps is a tale of the nuclear family in the nuclear age; a witty, revealing story about just how complicated and ambiguous modern life can be. 'Darkly funny, lyrical and shrewdly observant' Tom Perrotta 'A big, generous-hearted American family novel . . . Meno's characters bristle with humanity, and I think this book will find a huge audience for its wisdom and life-affirming, but unsentimental, qualities' Irvine Welsh, Daily Telegraph