description: Meet the the memorably eccentric, wilful, beguiling family who will lead you from 1950s Rhodesia to England to 1970s New Jersey as they restlessly search for their place in the world.Howard is an engineer with dreams of irrigating the Sahara, his wife Julia a fiery spirit who refuses to conform - particular to her flighty mother's standards. Both are determined to shake off their dubious white colonial heritage and find a better society in which to raise their the anarchic twins, Julius and Marcus, and their older brother Will. But Will, who was secretly adopted, struggles with his identity as a Lament, and with the family's constant uprootings. Yet it turns out to be Will who holds the Laments together when disillusion and misfortune threaten to tear them apart.Through the Laments' quest for happiness, their responses to adversity and especially their unwieldy love for one another, George Hagen draws a picture of every family that is funny, poignant, hopeful and true. His outstanding tragi-comedy marks the arrival of a captivating new voice.
language: English
title: The Laments
titlecomplete: The Laments
genres: Literary Fiction, Novels, Book Club, Humor, Roman, Fiction, The United States Of America, Africa, Contemporary
ratings_count: 829
awards: awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: William Saroyan International Prize for Writing
category: Fiction
publisher: Sceptre