num_pages: 640
description: An epic novel about obsessive love in an age of obsessive materialism, Seven Types of Ambiguity is at once a psychological thriller, a social critique, and a literary adventure of breathtaking scope.It is a story of impulse and paralysis, empty marriages, lovers, gambling, and the stock market; of adult children and their parents; of poetry and prostitution, psychiatry and the law. By turns comic, poetic, and dramatic, it is, above all, a novel that speaks with unforgettable force about obsessive and redemptive love.Seven Types of Ambiguity is told by seven different narrators whose lives are entangled in unexpected ways. After years of unrequited love, a lonely schoolteacher decides to take matters into his own hands to win back a woman he lost long ago, and thereby triggers a chain of events that neither he nor his psychiatrist could have anticipated. Brimming with emotional, intellectual and moral dilemmas, this novel—reminiscent of 19th-century fiction in its labyrinthine complexity and social commentary—unfolds at a rapid-fire pace to reveal the full extent to which these people have been affected by one another and by the insecure and uncertain times in which they live. Our times, now."A colossal achievement, a complicated, driven marathon of a book… In a sense, every character in the book is on trial and there is as much tension as in the best courtroom drama… At the end, in a comprehensive, almost Shakespearean way, Perlman picks up every loose thread and knots it." -- The Observer (UK)
language: English
title: Seven Types of Ambiguity
titlecomplete: Seven Types of Ambiguity
genres: Literary Fiction, Book Club, Drama, Unfinished, Fiction, Literature, Modern, Contemporary, Australia, Novels
ratings_count: 4992
awards: awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Miles Franklin Literary Award
publisher: Riverhead Books