Half The Kingdom

(Paperback)

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At a city hospital the doctors have noticed a marked uptake in Alzheimer's patients. Is it just normal ageing or an epidemic Is it a coincidence or is Alzheimer's spreading like the common cold The renowned New Yorker writer and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lore Segal creates a poignant and profoundly moving portrait of life today - where terrorist paranoia and end-of-the-world hysteria mask deeper fears of mortality, and in which we find tenderness as well as sadness in family life and its complications.

Reviews

A New York Times Notable Book 2013

The novel's comedy beats back the darkness."
New York Times Book Review

At once wry and poignant."
New Yorker

Acerbic, compassionate, astonishingly keen, very funny."
Boston Globe

Extremely funny."
Wall Street Journal

A daring novella that manages to be funny and wise."
O, The Oprah Magazine

One of the rare writers who combines art, eccentricity, honesty, and wisdom."
Chicago Tribune

Both funny and tragic, delightful and dizzingly complex."
Los Angeles Review of Books

Segals narrative unfolds in snapshot scenes... The well-crafted and respectfully comedic depictions of the aged grant this book much of its mind and heart."
Eileen Battersby's Books of the Year 2014, The Irish Times

A dark comedy... Segal grounds her premise in the most real and authentic detail, exposing the impatience and self-interest of families, as they try to discover what is going wrong."
The Independent (UK)

Biting, irreverant."
Sunday Times (UK)

An intriguing blend of black farce and modern horror Ripe with metaphysical resonance and, at times, Segal comes across as a bit like Beckett with a flamboyant sense of humour. Best of all is her prose style."
Metro (UK)

Segal continues to best the best of them with her light hand and heavy comedy."
Globe and Mail (Canada)

Glorious."
Maclean's (Canada)

Rare insight into the human character that is at once humbling and shamelessly enjoyable to behold. "
Publishers Weekly

A masterwork...Both wise and deeply enjoyable."
Cynthia Ozick, author of Foreign Bodies

No one writes like Segal her glittering intelligence, her piercing wit, and her dazzling insights into manners and mores, are a profound pleasure. From first to last I loved this wise and irreverent novel."
Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy

I always feel in her work such a sense of toughness and humor. Her writing is sad and funny, and that makes it more of both."
Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad

If America had anything resembling a wise elder, or cared to, it would be Lore Segal, and Half the Kingdom would be her moving, blackly-comic revelation."
Shalom Auslander, author of Hope: A Tragedy

I have never read such an astonishing book about old age. Its remarkable. This woman is one of the best writers Ive ever had the privilege of reading."
Ayelet Waldman, author of Love and Treasure

Lore Segal is a marvelous and fearless writer. No subject is too hard, too absurd, or too painful for her wise peculiar and brilliant fiction."
Lily Tuck, author of The News from Paraguay

Author Bio

LORE SEGAL is the author of the novels Lucinella, Other People's Houses, Her First American and the story collection Shakespeare's Kitchen, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is the recipient of an American Academy and the Institutes of Arts and Letters award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an O'Henry Award and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper's Magazine, The New Republic and other publications. At eighty-five years old, Segal lives and writes in New York City.