The Caretaker

Name: The Caretaker
Brand: Unknown
SKU: 9780811234771
Price: 29.99 NZD
Availability: InStock

By Doon Arbus

Summary

The Caretaker by Doon Arbus delves into the mysterious world of a deceased man's personal museum. As the new caretaker explores the eccentric collection, the novel intertwines themes of memory, identity, and the strange legacy that objects can hold, creating a thought-provoking narrative rich with intrigue.
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Format: Paperback / softback

$29⁹⁹

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The Caretaker

$29⁹⁹

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you're drawn to stories set in uniquely mysterious settings, with a focus on the complexities of human perception and the eerie aura of a museum holding secrets and memories. It could appeal to readers intrigued by the exploration of identity and the fascination of objects tied to the past.

The Caretaker

A lush, disorienting novel, The Caretaker takes no prisoners as it explores the perils of devotion and the potentially lethal charisma of things

Description

Following the death of a renowned and eccentric collector—author of Stuff, a seminal philosophical work on the art of accumulation—the fate of the privately endowed museum he cherished falls to a peripatetic stranger who had been his fervent admirer.

This peculiar institution, The Society for the Preservation of the Legacy of Dr. Charles Alexander Morgan, is dedicated to the annihilation of hierarchy: peerless antiquities commune happily with the ignored, the discarded, the undervalued, and the valueless.

What transpires as the caretaker assumes dominion over this reliquary of voiceless objects and over its visitors is told in a manner at once obsessive and matter of fact, and in language both cocooning and expansive. A wry and haunting tale, The Caretaker, like the interplanetary crystal that is one of the museum's treasures, is rare, glistening, and of a compacted inwardness.

Kafka or Shirley Jackson may come to mind, and The Caretaker may conjure up various genres—parables, ghost stories, locked-room mysteries—but Doon Arbus draws her phosphorescent water from no other writer's well.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

The Caretaker by Doon Arbus is praised for its tight and focused prose, evoking a gothic atmosphere with an amusing touch reminiscent of Jamesian literature. The novel artfully creates a fictional world that mirrors reality, exploring themes of memory, love, and survival. It's described as a mysteriously compelling narrative that delves into human identity and the tangible remnants of existence, establishing Arbus as a notable new voice in literature.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780811234771

Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 17 February 2023

Country: United States

Imprint: New Directions Publishing Corporation

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 13.0mm

Width: 137.0mm

Height: 203.0mm

Weight: 168g

Pages: 144

Collections

Doon Arbus Fiction General Fiction Literary Fiction

About the Author

Doon Arbus is a writer. She was born in New York City and never really left. The author of six nonfiction books, she made her debut as a novelist with The Caretaker. She is also a freelance journalist.