Brother of the More Famous Jack: A Novel [Paperback]

Ask today's favorite novelists what books influenced their writing and you'll hearBrother of the More Famous Jackagain and again.Dog-eared copies of this long out-of-print novel are highly prized and shared enthusiastically in literary circles-its return to print is cause for celebration.

Stylish, suburban Katherine is eighteen when she is propelled into the heart of Professor Jacob Goldman's rambling home and his large eccentric family. As his enchanting yet sharp-tongued wife, Jane, gives birth to her sixth child, Katherine meets beautiful, sulky Roger and his volatile younger brother, Jonathan. Inevitable heartbreak sends her fleeing to Rome, but ten years later, older and wiser, she returns to find the Goldmans again.

Why did it take me so long to discover the singular joys of Barbara Trapido's novels? Why, for so many years, had I missed these witty, soulful, heartbreaking, expansive, brilliant tales? What have I been wasting my time doing? Reading books that AREN'T perfect? Never again! Since finally discovering Trapido in 2012, I have become a literary evangelist on her behalf. On account of my badgering, all my friends now love her, too. I won't rest until everyone in America has read (and fallen in love with) this fabulous author. -Elizabeth Gilbert

???An unpretentious and very funny book . . . A complex and highly polished work . . . . Barbara Trapido has that rare ability to make her characters respond to small misfortunes and irritations exactly as people do.??? ???New York Times

???A staggeringly competant first novel.??? ???Boston Globe

???I've given . . .Brother of the More Famous Jackto dozens of people, and like me, they fall rapturously in love with Trapido's breezy, raunchy and unsentimental style.??? ???Maria Semple, The New York Times

???Funny, charming, teeming with life, and real.??? ???Nick Hornby, Esquire

???This is a first novel . . . bl32