In The Royal Family, William T. Vollmann uses the story of two brothers to construct a haunting series of parallels between the lives of the dispossessed and the anxious middle class. Henry Tyler is a failing private detective in San Francisco. When the love of his life, Irene—who happens to be married to his brother John, an ambitious contract lawyer—commits suicide, he clings despairingly to her ghost. Struggling to turn his grief into something precious, Henry enters into a new life of nightmare beauty and degradation as he attempts to track down the legendary Queen of the Prostitutes.
Crafted out of language by turns eloquent, humorous, sensual, and obscene, and full of vividly rendered depictions of low-life bars, office politics, and hobo camps, here are Vollmann's familiar but ever surprising characters—the seekers, the vigilantes, the hypocrites, the sex workers. He has woven their stories into a vivid and unforgettable novel about the eerie paradoxes of possession and loss.
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
August 1, 2001 -
Formats
-
Kindle Book
-
OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781101221563
-
EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781101221563
- File size: 1584 KB
-
-
Accessibility
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews

Loading
Formats
- Kindle Book
- OverDrive Read
- EPUB ebook
subjects
Languages
- English
Why is availability limited?
×Availability can change throughout the month based on the library's budget. You can still place a hold on the title, and your hold will be automatically filled as soon as the title is available again.
The Kindle Book format for this title is not supported on:
×Read-along ebook
×The OverDrive Read format of this ebook has professional narration that plays while you read in your browser. Learn more here.