“Ms. Schutt has a stark, scientific eye and an artist’s voice.”
In Prosperous Friends, Christine Schutt’s crafting of three parts minimalism and one part stream-of-consciousness with rigorous lyricism of voice results in not so much a love story as a dissection of the possibility of love.
It is the tragicomedy of Ned and Isabel Bourne and their many paramours in a new millennium setting with an Edith Wharton telling—a little hotter on the sex, but well within the boundaries of literary marriages artistically rendered.
Writers fresh out of graduate school, the Bournes travel to London, Rome, New York, and Maine, searching for some assurance of their artistic promises, emotional connections and sexual fulfillments. They explore new countries and friendships that complicate and ultimately derail the couple with debauchery and politeness—Madame Bovary on The Age of Innocence…. Read the full review at New York Journal of Books
