 | Music for Torching Flash-frozen in the anxious culture of a suburban subdivision, Paul and Elaine have two boys and a beautiful home, yet they find themselves thoroughly, inexplicably stuck. Obsessed with "making things good again," they spin the quiet terrors of family life into a fantastical frenzy that careens out of control, doing and saying all the things we dare not, throwing into full relief the chasm between our public and private selves. From a strange and hilarious encounter on the floor of the pantry with a Stepford-wife neighbor to an ill-conceived plan for a tattoo, to a sexy town cop who shows up at every inopportune moment, to a house-cleaning team in space suits, to a mistress calling on the cell phone, to a hostage situation at the school, Homes creates characters so outrageously flawed and deeply human that they are entirely believable. |
 | Excerpt It is after midnight on one of those Saturday nights when the guests have all gone home and the host and hostess are left in their drunkenness to try and put things right. More |
 | Reviews At one point in A.M. Homes's new novel, Music for Torching, suburban women take an ax to a dining-room table damaged in a house fire. "I could do this forever," one says. "Anything else need the old chop-chop?" She looks out... More |