Larry's Party

by Carol Shields

An episodic novel that tells the story of Larry Weller, born in Winnipeg, Canada of English parents. In a series of vignettes, readers are introduced to the people in Larry's life, his career as a landscape designer and maze-maker, his troubled marriages, and the development of his personality. As the confused protagonist struggles to make sense of who he is, mazes come to take on a more symbolic role, and readers become enveloped within Larry Weller's psyche. A "New York Times" Notable Book for 1997.

Editions of Larry's Party

ISBN 9780670873920	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Penguin USA	Date 1997	Price $1.00	Good
ISBN 9780864921918	Binding/Format Audio Cassette	Publisher Goose Lane Editions	Date 2001	Price $1.55	Very Good
ISBN 9780788718731	Binding/Format Audio Cassette	Publisher Recorded Books	Date 1998	Price $3.99	Used - Good
ISBN 9781568955377	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Wheeler Pub Inc	Date 1998	Price $1.00	Very Good
ISBN 9780140266771	Binding/Format Paperback	Publisher Penguin Group USA	Date 1998	Price $1.00	Fine
ISBN 9780864924674	Binding/Format Compact Disc	Publisher Goose Lane Editions	Date 2006	Price $49.50	New

Media Reviews

"A meticulous coming-of-(middle)-age novel by Pulitzer Prize-winner Shields, who seems to have mastered the art of understatement without falling into the bottomless pit of obscurity....Very fine and real..."

Excerpt

He lives in the short view, his close-up, textured, parochial world, the little valley of intimacy he was born into, always thinking, without knowing he's thinking. Living next door to the great words, but not with them....It is impossible...to live a whole life sealed inside the constraints of a complex body. Sooner or later, and sometimes by accident, someone is going to reach out a hand or a tongue or a morsel of genital flesh and enter that valved darkness.

First Line

By mistake Larry Weller took someone else's Harris tweed jacket instead of his own, and it wasn't till he jammed his hand in the pocket that he knew something was wrong.

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