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Speedboat

With an introduction by Hilton Als
By Renata Adler
Series: W&N Essentials
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Brief Description
Jen Fain is a journalist negotiating the fraught landscape of 1970s New York. Party guests, taxi drivers, brownstone dwellers, professors, journalists, presidents and debutantes fill these dispatches from the world as she finds it. Simultaneously novel, memoir, commonplace book, confession and critique - Speedboat is funny,... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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A novel unlike anything that came before it that changed all that came after it - a cult classic for readers of Maggie Nelson, Jenny Offill, Ben Lerner and Anne Carson

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Jen Fain is a journalist negotiating the fraught landscape of 1970s New York.

Party guests, taxi drivers, brownstone dwellers, professors, journalists, presidents and debutantes fill these dispatches from the world as she finds it.

Simultaneously novel, memoir, commonplace book, confession and critique - Speedboat is funny, disturbing, cutting, brilliant unlike anything that had come before. Since it burst onto the scene in the 1970s, it has enthralled generations of readers and been a touchstone for writers including David Foster Wallace, Claudia Rankine and Jenny Offill.

With an introduction by Hilton Als

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781399627528

Publisher: Orion Publishing Co

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 26 March 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Contributors:

  • Introduction by Hilton Als
  • Introduction by Hilton Als
  • Introduction by Hilton Als

Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 192

Collections

Classic Fiction Classic General Fiction Fiction General Fiction Literary Fiction Renata Adler Series: W&N Essentials

About the Author

RENATA ADLER was born in Milan and raised in Connecticut. She received a B.A. from Bryn Mawr, an M.A. from Harvard, a D.d E.S from the Sorbonne, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and an LL.D. (honorary) from Georgetown. Adler became a staff writer at the New Yorker in 1963 and, except for a year as the chief film critic of the New York Times, remained at the New Yorker for the next four decades. She has written six works of non-fiction, and the novels SPEEDBOAT (1976; winner of the Ernest Hemingway Award for Best First Novel) and PITCH DARK (1983).

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  • Speedboat
    Jen Fain is a journalist negotiating the fraught landscape of 1970s New York. Party guests, taxi drivers, brownstone dwellers, professors, journalists, presidents, and debutantes fill these dispatches from the world as she finds it. Simultaneously novel, memoir, commonplace book, confession, and critique - Speedboat is funny, disturbing, cutting, brilliant, and unlike anything that had come before. Since it burst onto...
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