{"product_id":"the-development-9780547394503","title":"The Development","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom one of our most celebrated masters, a touching, comic, deeply humane collection of linked stories about surprising developments in a gated community\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"I find myself inclined to set down for whomever, before my memory goes kaput altogether, some account of our little community, in particular of what Margie and I consider to have been its most interesting hour: the summer of the Peeping Tom.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSomething has disturbed the comfortably retired denizens of a pristine Florida-style gated community in Chesapeake Bay country. In the dawn of the new millennium and the evening of their lives, these empty nesters discover that their tidy enclave can be as colorful, shocking, and surreal as any of John Barth's fictional locales.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom the high jinks of a toga party to marital infidelities, a baffling suicide pact, and the sudden, apocalyptic destruction of the short-lived development, Barth brings mordant humor and compassion to the lives of characters we all know well. From \"one of the most prodigally gifted comic novelists writing in English today\" (\u003cem\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/em\u003e), \u003cem\u003eThe Development\u003c\/em\u003e is John Barth at his most accessible and sympathetic best.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBarth, John:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - JOHN BARTH's fiction has won the National Book Award, the PEN\/Malamud Award, and the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. For many years he taught in the writing seminars at John Hopkins University. He is the author of such seminal works as \u003ci\u003eThe Sot-Weed Factor, Chimera\u003c\/i\u003e (for which he won the NBA), and \u003ci\u003eGiles Goat-Boy\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"Houghton Mifflin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50726119145746,"sku":"9780547394503","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_0cae156a-a836-49a6-a7cc-186964986e54.jpg?v=1734854736","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-development-9780547394503","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}