Love and Fatigue in America - Hardcover

"King fashions a rich, compelling, and often wry narrative out of a set of circumstances that could quite easily fatigue the reader's interest or sympathy. Pithily but not self-pitifully, he captures 'the labor of being sick in America', the psychology and stigma of disease, as well as the essences of places and personalities (one man 'peppers his talk with little challenges to maintain the upper hand') in the foreign land he now calls home."--Eric J. Iannelli, "Times Literary Supplement" King fashions a rich, compelling, and often wry narrative out of a set of circumstances that could quite easily fatigue the reader s interest or sympathy. Pithily but not self-pitifully, he captures the labor of being sick in America, the psychology and stigma of disease, as well as the essences of places and personalities (one man peppers his talk with little challenges to maintain the upper hand ) in the foreign land he now calls home. Eric J. Iannelli, "Times Literary Supplement"" The book is fiction, but King s use of first-person captures a real man one with authentic, flawed retrospective recall. The novel reads a little bit like a diary, including a few steamy love scenes and witty, observant notes on topics as diverse as strippers, military life, and ambition. . . . King s well-crafted book raises important questions about how our society treats sick people. What happened to the narrator could happen to anyone. Perhaps the book could help inspire a remedy for a healthcare system that doesn t seem very caring. "Research 1st" " [An] extraordinary autobiographical novel. . . . The narrative expertly cobbles together unexpected moments of poetry; meditations on illness, war, and ambition; and vignettes, which like the narrator himself alternately admit devastating failures and sing with triumph. "Publishers Weekly" (starred review)" "Love and Fatigue in America" is a beautifully written, brave, and at times almost brutally honest story of the author s struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome. The writing is both spare and poetically evocative. It is a polished and moving work of literature. Jennifer Moses, author of "Bagels and Grits: A Jew on the Bayou"" This is a terrific book. It defies categorization. It reminds me, in its fierce but mysterious organization, of the best works that reach far and wide in subject matter, and far and wide in mode. I think of Sebald s moody books here, and Didion s "White Album." Brian D. Bouldrey, author of "Honorable Bandit: A Walk Across Corsica "" What does it mean to live in between? Not only between geographical locations, but between health and illness, commitment and freedom, love and loss? In this wry and subtle autobiographical novel, Roger King maps the territory of his inner life onto the American continent. The genre-crossing result is, like the work of W.G. Sebald, surprising and dazzling. Andrea Barrett, author of "The Air We Breathe" and winner of the National Book Award" Few writers dare to try the scope of Roger King, from the intensely personal to the universal, and even fewer succeed. But King does. "Love and Fatigue in America" manages to offer three rewarding narratives at once in a book that is equally novel and memoir. He has done something astonishing. Helen Benedict, author of "Sand Queen"" Roger King s disturbing, delightful odyssey encompasses many subjects love, loss, health, illness, disconnection, and most of all the modern American psyche: its roots and its rootlessness. A profound and wonderfully original book. Joan Wickersham, author of "The Suicide Index"" "This is a terrific book. It defies categorization. It reminds me, in its fierce but mysterious organization, of the best works that reach far and wide in subject matter, and far and wide in mode. I think of Sebald's moody books here, and Didion's "White Album.""--Brian D. Bouldrey, author of "Honorable Bandit: A Walk Across Corsica " "The book is fiction, but King's use of first-person captures a real man--one with authentic, flawed retrospective recall. The novel reads a little bit like a diary, including a few steamy love scenes and witty, observant notes on topics as diverse as strippers, military life, and ambition. . . . King's well-crafted book raises important questions about how our society treats sick people. What happened to the narrator could happen to anyone. Perhaps the book could help inspire a remedy for a healthcare system that doesn't seem very caring."--"Research 1st" "[An] extraordinary autobiographical novel ....The narrative expertly cobbles together unexpected moments of poetry; meditations on illness, war, and ambition; and vignettes, which--like the narrator himself--alternately admit devastating failures and sing with triumph."--"Publishers Weekly" (starred review) "[An] extraordinary autobiographical novel. . . . The narrative expertly cobbles together unexpected moments of poetry; meditations on illness, war, and ambition; and vignettes, which--like the narrator himself--alternately admit devastating failures and sing with triumph."--"Publishers Weekly" (starred review) ""Love and Fatigue in America" is a beautifully written, brave, and at times almost brutally honest story of the author's struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome. The writing is both spare and poetically evocative. It is a polished and moving work of literature."--Jennifer Moses, author of "Bagels and Grits: A Jew on the Bayou" "What does it mean to live in between? Not only between geographical locations, but between health and illness, commitment and freedom, love and loss? In this wry and subtle autobiographical novel, Roger King maps the territory of his inner life onto the American continent. The genre-crossing result is, like the work of W.G. Sebald, surprising and dazzling."--Andrea Barrett, author of "The Air We Breathe" and winner of the National Book Award "Few writers dare to try the scope of Roger King, from the intensely personal to the universal, and even fewer succeed. But King does. "Love and Fatigue in America" manages to offer three rewarding narratives at once in a book that is equally novel and memoir. He has done something astonishing."--Helen Benedict, author of "Sand Queen" "Roger King's disturbing, delightful odyssey encompasses many subjects--love, loss, health, illness, disconnection, and most of all the modern American psyche: its roots and its rootlessness. A profound and wonderfully original book."--Joan Wickersham, author of "The Suicide Index"

Love and Fatigue in America records an Englishman's decade-long journey through his newly adopted country in the company of a mystifying illness and a charismatic dog. When he receives an unexpected invitation from an unfamiliar American university, he embraces it as a triumphant new beginning. Instead, on arrival, he is stricken with a persistent inability to stand up or think straight, and things quickly go wrong. Diagnosed with ME disease - chronic fatigue syndrome - he moves restlessly from state to state, woman to woman, and eccentric doctor to eccentric doctor, in a search for a love and a life suited to his new condition. The journey is simultaneously brave, absurd, and instructive. Finding himself prostrate on beds and couches from Los Alamos to Albany, he hears the intimate stories offered by those he encounters - their histories, hurts, and hopes - and from these fragments an unsentimental map emerges of the inner life of a nation. Disability has shifted his interest in America from measuring its opportunities to taking the measure of its humanity. Forced to consider for himself the meaning of a healthy life and how best to nurture it, he incidentally delivers a report on the health of a country. By turns insightful, comic, affecting, and profound, Roger King's Love and Fatigue in America briskly compresses an illness, a nation, and an era through masterly blending of literary forms. In a work that defies categorization, and never loses its pace or poise, the debilitated narrator is, ironically, the most lively and fully awake figure in the book.