Raoul de Noget, an over-the-hill singer, and his younger pal Buddy ( The World s Greatest Piano Player ), find themselves in a small town in the Midwest. They become friends with the son and daughter of the local sheriff, and the four hatch a plan to do something that, if they are caught, will be seen as a crime, but if they are not, will be art: they will rob the town bank, take the money over the border into Indiana, and then return it all the next day.With this story at its center, Robert Ashley s inimitable Perfect Lives goes on to demolish every narrative convention in the book, taking in conflicting perspectives, texts, tones, narrators, and philosophies, roping in Midwestern ennui, pop songs, self-help tapes, heist movies, the lost city of Atlantis, dirty jokes, the history of American immigration, the preternatural flatness of Illinois, boogie-woogie, Giordano Bruno, and, finally, an elegy for thought itself.
Title: Perfect Lives
Subtitle:
Contributors:
By (author)
Robert Ashley
;
Foreword by
Kyle Gann
ISBN 13: 9781564786845
ISBN 10: 1564786846
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
Imprint: Dalkey Archive Press
Publication Date: 18/11/2011
Place of Publication:
Normal,
United States
Edition:
BIC Subjects:
General & literary fiction
NBS Classification: General & Literary Fiction
Dewey Classification:
782.10268
(DC23)
;
782.10268
(DC21)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
Height: 216mm
Width: 171mm
Thickness: 17mm
Weight: 360g