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Set in Paducah, Kentucky, Lee Cole's follow-up to Groundskeeping ("An exacting, beautifully textured debut novel ... presages a major career" —The New York Times Book Review) is a powerful, page-turning story of two half brothers navigating the complexities of class and privilege in the American South.
Fulfillment tells the story of two half brothers—Joel, a successful academic and author, whose marriage is in deep trouble, and his younger sibling Emmett, paralyzed by indecision and working on a factory assembly line—who find themselves at their family home in Kentucky and upend each other's lives in devasting ways.
Between them is Alice, Joel's wife, a wry, passionate young woman who is being slowly asphyxiated by domestic tedium, and whose longing collides with Emmett's hunger for connection and desire to escape a sense of burgeoning failure and shame. As the chemistry between them escalates, the family is plunged into a violent crucible, each character brought to a precipice of immutable catastrophe.
Incisive, poignant, gorgeously written, Lee Cole has written a haunting novel about class, privilege, brotherhood, and the American South, a book that asks whether people can change, and at what cost, and what it takes to build a life of fulfillment and meaning.
What are you reading this week? (6/19/025)
I'm reading Fulfillment by Lee Cole but having a hard time getting into it. Just finished Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor - loved it. And The English Masterpiece by Katherine Reay - inte...
-Shirley_Fentz
"Cole mixes the angst and insecurity of class and poverty to craft a Molotov cocktail he lobs with exacting precision." —Booklist (starred review)
"[A]n evocative tale...but the mix of hijinks and high stakes feels tonally imbalanced. Nevertheless, this captures a colorful snapshot of contemporary Southern life." —Publishers Weekly
"Cole perfectly captures a particular kind of charming yet frustrating character: a slow-to-launch, aspiring Southern writer who makes ill-considered decisions that throw his life into disarray. Clearly, this is Cole's wheelhouse." —Kirkus Reviews
This information about Fulfillment was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Ariel Katz
Lee Cole was born and grew up in rural Kentucky. He is the author of the novel Groundskeeping. A recent graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he now lives in Philadelphia.
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