The Condition - Tapa blanda

A dysfunctional New England family struggles toward normalcy in this poignant novel. . . . The children take unexpected turns that shake up the narrative, leading to the most surprising twist of all: despite the sobering events chronicled, there s a strong nod to the healing power of love. Haigh allows the reader to sympathize with each of the family members, and, in turn, to see their flaws and better understand them. (Publishers Weekly)

With humor, grace, and an abiding compassion that is becoming her signature, Jennifer Haigh illuminates the dark tangle of desire and deed that is the family, that crucible we so often yearn to flee yet keep coming back to again and again. THE CONDITION is unsentimental, compelling, and moving, and I urge you to read it! (Andre Dubus III, New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award finalist House of Sand and Fog)

The ailment at the center of this remarkable novel is the human condition itself. Jennifer Haigh has written a sprawling, emotionally gripping account of one family s troubled history, enlivened by her formidable intelligence and deep insight into her characters hearts and minds. (Tom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of Little Children and Election)

The long awaited third novel from best-selling and award-winning author Jennifer Haigh , following up the trade paperback success of MRS. KIMBLE and BAKER TOWERS.
The Condition explores one turbulent year in the lives of the McKotches, a New England family in extremis. Paulette and Frank McKotch, long divorced, hide a mountain of old grievances from their three adult children, who are busy with crises of their own. Billy, the eldest, is a successful Manhattan cardiologist living a double life. Scott, the youngest, has made an endless series of wrong turns. And Gwen, the daughter, lives a hermitic life far away from her parents. The family attributes her reclusive temperament to her Turner s syndrome, a chromosomal disorder that has left her with the stature and physical maturity of an eleven year-old child. From the day it was diagnosed, Gwen s condition has caused explosive disagreement between her parents. Frank is fascinated by the clinical manifestations of Turner s -- a scientific interest that horrifies Paulette, who sees Gwen s condition as nothing short of calamity.

As Christmas 1997 approaches, Frank, a prominent medical researcher, is on the brink of a big discovery when an old rival reappears. Billy s secret life implodes, and Scott becomes obsessed with roads not taken. And Gwen, in her thirties, falls in love for the first time, a development the whole family views with alarm.

The Condition looks at the power of science and its profound limitations, the determining reality of biology and the power of individual will. Mostly, though, it is a story about parents and children and siblings: the people we love but didn t choose -- and in many cases, wouldn t have; the complex and bewildering web of loyalties and resentments that takes a lifetime to form.