Summary and Reviews of The Astral by Kate Christensen

The Astral by Kate Christensen

The Astral

A Novel

by Kate Christensen
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (9):
  • First Published:
  • Jun 14, 2011, 320 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jun 2012, 320 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

From the PEN/Faulkner Award–winning author of The Great Man, a scintillating novel of love, loss, and literary rivalry set in rapidly changing Brooklyn.

The Astral is a huge rose-colored old pile of an apart­ment building in the gentrifying neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. For decades it was the happy home (or so he thought) of the poet Harry Quirk and his wife, Luz, a nurse, and of their two children: Karina, now a fer­vent freegan, and Hector, now in the clutches of a cultish Christian community. But Luz has found (and destroyed) some poems of Harry's that ignite her long-simmering sus­picions of infidelity, and he's been summarily kicked out. He now has to reckon with the consequence of his literary, marital, financial, and parental failures (and perhaps oth­ers) and find his way forward - and back into Luz's good graces.

Harry Quirk is, in short, a loser, living small and low in the water. But touched by Kate Christensen's novelistic grace and acute perception, his floundering attempts to reach higher ground and forge a new life for himself become funny, bittersweet, and terrifically moving. She knows what secrets lurk in the hearts of men - and she turns them into literary art of the highest order.

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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

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The Astral is a close examination of how difficult relationships can be and what factors converge to bring about their demise. Though somewhat dark in overall tone, Christensen knows how to relieve the tension... I give this book four stars for its entertaining, deeply thought-out plot and vivid characters. What small flaws it does have - such as slight lags in the plot - are more than made up for otherwise. A recommended read...continued

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(Reviewed by Lisa Guidarini).

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Beyond the Book



Freeganism

In The Astral, the Quirk's daughter Karina is a practicing "freegan" - a term that comes from a fusion of the words "free" and "vegan" (although not all freegans are vegans) - and as such, she chooses to eschew conventional consumerism. recycling symbol Often referred to as "dumpster divers," freegans generally believe that western society throws away too many useable goods - including food - and they consciously limit their participation in the current, profit-driven economic system. This wasteful mentality, they explain, increases the need for more landfills, leaches pollution into ground water, and threatens an already compromised environment; once a dump is full, more must be built, and open land is transformed into unsightly and health-...

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Read-Alikes

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