Work Like Any Other: A Novel

Work Like Any Other: A Novel

LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE

In this astonishingly accomplished, morally complicated, â€œexceptional and starkly beautiful debutâ€ (Kevin Powers, National Book Awardâ€“nominated author of The Yellow Birds), a prideful electrician in 1920s rural Alabama struggles to overcome past sins and find peace after being sent to prison for manslaughter.

Roscoe T Martin set his sights on a new type of power spreading at the start of the twentieth century: electricity. It became his training, his lifeâ€™s work. But when his wife, Marie, inherits her fatherâ€™s failing farm, Roscoe has to give up his livelihood, with great cost to his sense of self, his marriage, and his family. Realizing he might lose them all if he doesnâ€™t do something, he begins to use his skills as an electrician to siphon energy from the state, ushering in a period of bounty and happiness. Even the love of Marie and their child seem back within Roscoeâ€™s grasp.

Then a young man working for the state power company stumbles on Roscoeâ€™s illegal lines and is electrocuted, and everything changes: Roscoe is arrested; the farm once more starts to deteriorate; and Marie abandons her husband, leaving him to face his twenty-year sentence alone. Now an unmoored Roscoe must carve out a place at Kilby Prison. Climbing the ranks of the incarcerated from dairy hand to librarian to â€œdog boy,â€ an inmate who helps the guards track down escapees, he is ultimately forced to ask himself once more if his work is just that, or if the price of his crimesâ€”for him and his familyâ€”is greater than he ever let himself believe.

Gorgeously spare and brilliantly insightful, Work Like Any Other is â€œa striking debut about love and redemption, the heavy burdens of family and guilt, and learning how to escape themâ€¦Virginia Reeves is a major new talentâ€ (Philipp Meyer, New York Times bestselling author of The Son).
Country USA
Brand Scribner
Manufacturer Scribner
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber 9781501112492
ReleaseDate 2016-03-01
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781501112492

Country	USA
Brand	Scribner
Manufacturer	Scribner
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	9781501112492
ReleaseDate	2016-03-01
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781501112492

Work Like Any Other: A Novel

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