{"product_id":"9781573668682","title":"Year of the Rat","description":"\u003cb\u003e2017 American Book Award Winner\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eWinner of the FC2 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eMarc Anthony Richardson's \u003ci\u003eYear of the Rat\u003c\/i\u003e is a poignant and riveting literary debut narrated in an unabashedly exuberant voice.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eYear of the Rat,\u003c\/i\u003e an artist returns to the dystopian city of his birth to tend to his invalid mother only to find himself torn apart by memories and longings. Narrated by this nameless figure whose rants, reveries, and Rabelaisian escapades take him on a Dantesque descent into himself, the story follows him and his mother as they share a one-bedroom apartment over the course of a year.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Despite his mother’s precarious health, the lingering memories of a lost love, an incarcerated sibling, a repressed sexuality, and an anarchic inability to support himself, he pursues his dream of becoming an avant-garde artist. His prospects grow dim until a devastating death provides a painful and unforeseeable opportunity. With a voice that is poetic and profane, ethereal and irreverent, cyclical and succinct, he roams from vignette to vignette, creating a polyphonic patchwork quilt of a family portrait.","brand":"University of Alabama Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47128962957552,"sku":"9781573668682","price":9.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781573668682_p0.jpg?v=1763796753","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781573668682","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}