{"product_id":"nine-island-isbn-9781936787128","title":"Nine Island","description":"\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book of 2016\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“\u003ci\u003eNine Island\u003c\/i\u003e is a crackling incantation, brittle and brilliant and hot and sad and full of sideways humor that devastates and illuminates all at once.” —Lauren Groff, author of \u003ci\u003eFates and Furies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNine Island\u003c\/i\u003e is an intimate autobiographical novel, told by J, a woman who lives in a glass tower on one of Miami Beach’s lush Venetian Islands. After decades of disaster with men, she is trying to decide whether to withdraw forever from romantic love. Having just returned to Miami from a monthlong reunion with an old flame, “Sir Gold,” and a visit to her fragile mother, J begins translating Ovid’s magical stories about the transformations caused by Eros. “A woman who wants, a man who wants nothing. These two have stalked the world for thousands of years,” she thinks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen not ruminating over her sexual past and current fantasies, in the company of only her aging cat, J observes the comic, sometimes steamy goings–on among her faded–glamour condo neighbors. One of them, a caring nurse, befriends her, eventually offering the opinion that “if you retire from love . . . then you retire from life.”\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eNine Island\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e, Best Summer Books 2018\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e's 25 Best Books of 2016 in Fiction\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Alison’s evocation of J’s interior life feels honest, and it dramatizes the social invisibility of women who live alone past a certain age. . . .[Her] novel treats with humor . . . existential questions about solitude and the inevitability of transformation. As our circumstances and bodies change, as we inflict and cause pain, as our lives expand and contract, what of the self endures? \u003ci\u003eNine Island\u003c\/i\u003e testifies to the fragility of a life that can vanish from sight, and to the sturdiness of one that maintains the capacity for change.” —Alix Ohlin, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The free form of Alison’s prose will keep you on your toes, and her meditations on the absence and presence of love will touch your heart.” —Estelle Tang, “The 11 Best Books for September 2016,” \u003ci\u003eELLE\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eNine Island\u003c\/i\u003e could be fun for a book club, though one with only female members. J, having just suffered a romantic rejection, retreats to her glass aerie on one of the Miami Beach islands, thinking about renouncing men forever. ‘Three decades of wandering among men. I have to ask myself, for what? Who made them the trees, the stars?\" —Sarah Murdoch, \u003ci\u003eToronto Star\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The more or less constant delights of Jane Alison’s latest novel bubble up out of a story that is, incongruously, bleak. It is quite an achievement, a comic novel about a woman of a certain age as she contemplates embracing a not–altogether–unwelcome spinsterhood. . . . There is a wonderful observation . . . on every page.” —Chauncey Mabe, \u003ci\u003eMiami Herald\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wonderful. . . . With echoes of Molly Bloom's soliloquy and Iris Murdoch's \u003ci\u003eThe Sea, the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e, Alison has forged a haunting and emotionally precise portrait, a beautiful reminder that solitude does not equal loneliness.” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I can’t stop thinking about this weird, wonderful book that follows a woman known only as 'J.' as she considers life on the cusp of sexual viability while living in a Miami Beach high rise. J. is (like her creator, who is also Director of Creative Writing at The University of Virginia) a serious scholar of Ovid, and \u003ci\u003eThe Metamorphoses\u003c\/i\u003e plays an important, but far from stuffy, role in the plot. Should be required reading for all women over age 18.” —Bethanne Patrick, \u003ci\u003eLiterary Hub\u003c\/i\u003e's 5 Great Books to Read Amid the September Onslaught\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Candid, contemplative, hilarious, and affecting. . . . It’s also quite a bit stranger than one might expect, in the best possible sense: allusive and elusive, it conflates its narrator’s restless mind and its louche, peculiar setting to produce an effect that’s vibrant, slippery, erotically charged, and slightly menacing.” —Martin Seay, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Mirror Thief\u003c\/i\u003e, in \u003ci\u003eElectric Literature\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A cerebral exploration of self, \u003ci\u003eNine Island\u003c\/i\u003e explores oneness and whether it is, or isn't, an acceptable ending.” —Ilana Masad, \u003ci\u003eRead it Forward\u003c\/i\u003e's Favorite Reads of September\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Earlier this year, we listed 99 books everyone should read. If you've somehow chewed through this list already, we recommend \u003ci\u003eNine Island\u003c\/i\u003e by Jane Alison.” —\u003ci\u003eHarper's BAZAAR\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This immersive, cerebral novel centers on J, a woman teetering on the balance between the concrete, sometimes grim responsibilities of her daily life and an equally urgent personal dilemma: should she 'retire' from love and romance?. . . . Evocative, sad, at times funny, and never completely without hope, \u003ci\u003eNine Island\u003c\/i\u003e studies what it means to be alone later in life.” —\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eNine Island\u003c\/i\u003e is a crackling incantation, brittle and brilliant and hot and sad and full of sideways humor that devastates and illuminates all at once.” —Lauren Groff, author of \u003ci\u003eFates and Furies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eNine Island\u003c\/i\u003e is a nerve–jangling book full of the giddy wit of the emotionally starving, the unfulfillable desire of being in love with being in love, and the weirdly sexy conversation of souls in free fall.”  —David Shields, author of \u003ci\u003eReality Hunger\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHow Literature Saved My Life\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This deceptively slim narrative, as witty and mercurial as any tale from Ovid, circles deftly around love and desire, pain and death, joy and solitude and the relentless nature of change. I fell into it as into water, transformed by the magic of Alison's prose.” —Andrea Barrett, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Air We Breathe and Archangel\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eJane Alison\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of a memoir, \u003ci\u003eThe Sisters Antipodes\u003c\/i\u003e, and three novels—\u003ci\u003eThe Love–Artist\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Marriage of the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eNatives and Exotics\u003c\/i\u003e—and the translator of Ovid's stories of sexual transformation, \u003ci\u003eChange Me\u003c\/i\u003e. She is Professor and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia, and lives in Charlottesville. Learn more at janealison.com.","brand":"Catapult","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304724582629,"sku":"NP9781936787128","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781936787128.jpg?v=1767733758","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/nine-island-isbn-9781936787128","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}