Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style: A Novel (Hardcover)

Description

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From the acclaimed writer and “one of our preeminent humorists” (The New York Times) Paul Rudnick, a riotously funny, perceptive, and life-affirming novel following the decades-long, rule-breaking romance between the son of one of American’s wealthiest families and a middle-class aspiring author.

Devastatingly handsome and insanely rich, Farrell Covington is capable of anything and impossible to resist. He’s a clear-eyed romantic, an aesthete but not a snob, self-indulgent yet wildly generous. As the son of one of the country’s most powerful and deeply conservative families, the world could be his. But when he falls for Nate Reminger, an aspiring writer from a nice Jewish family in Piscataway, New Jersey, the results are passionate and catastrophic.

Together, the two embark on a uniquely managed romance that spans half a century. They are inseparable—except for the many years when they are apart. Moving from the ivy-covered bastion of Yale to New York City, Los Angeles, and eventually all over the world, Farrell and Nate experience the tremendous upheaval and social change of the last fifty years. From the freedom of gay life in 1970s Manhattan to the Hollywood closet, the AIDS epidemic, and the profound strides of the LGBTQ+ movement, this witty and moving novel shows how the world changes around us while we’re busy doing other things. A story of chances lost and found (and sometimes just temporarily misplaced), with an epic reach, it reminds us that there is always the possibility of undiluted, unbridled, unstoppable happiness, if, as Farrell says, “You know where to look.” Style has its limits, love does not.

About the Author

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Paul Rudnick is an author, playwright, and screenwriter. His plays have been produced on and off Broadway and include Jeffrey, I Hate Hamlet, Regrets Only, and The New Century. He is the author of seven books, and his writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Esquire, and more. His screenplays include Addams Family Values, Coastal Elites, In & Out, Sister Act, and the film adaptation of Jeffrey. Find out more at PaulRudnick.com.

Praise For…

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"I loved Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style. Just ate up every word; it will make a Rudnick fan out of every reader. No funnier, wiser or more charming book will come out this year, I guarantee. So what are you waiting for? Get it!” —Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less and Less Is Lost

“This is precisely the novel I’ve been dying for this year, a case study in elegant, honest tragicomedy. And it’s also by the genuinely hilarious Paul Rudnick, so you know at least every other sentence is going to lay you out on your side, gasping for air, or at least another martini.” —Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Our Country Friends

“Rudnick writes with such engaging wit, side-eyed perceptiveness, and barbed elan, with such irrepressible life, that before you quite notice the shadings of loss, mortality and poignant retrospection in his new novel, they have already touched you with their power.” —Michael Chabon
 

“If you believe that there should be more pleasure, more style (high and low) and more genuine wit in this world, then read Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style. If you don't, I am sorry for you and if anyone cares for you, even a little, they will run out and get you this joyful and snarky, life-affirming, love-celebrating novel.” —Amy Bloom, New  York Times bestselling author of In Love

“A gay love story for the ages from one of the great comic voices of his generation…Is it a spoiler to say there are no limits? At least not to Rudnick’s ability to brilliantly elegize and entertain.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“Dazzling and funny…[Rudnick] proves himself to be in top form, and each page is loaded with quippy dialogue and winning character work. This is a roaring good time.” —Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)