Friday Freebie: Tumbledown by Robert Boswell

Congratulations to Lauren Parker, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: Women in Bed by Jessica Keener and The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan.

This week's book giveaway is the new novel by Robert Boswell, Tumbledown which comes to us from the good folks at Graywolf Press.  The publisher is graciously offering three copies of the novel to blog readers (howls of delight from all sectors of the blog-o-sphere).  Here's more about the novel:

Robert Boswell’s first novel since Century’s Son showcases once again his “dazzling technical skill, intelligence and moral seriousness” (The New York Times Book Review).   At age thirty-three, James Candler seems to be well on the road to success.  He’s in line for a big promotion at Onyx Springs, the treatment facility where he’s a therapist.  He has a fiancée, a sizable house, and a Porsche.  But he’s falling in love with another woman, he’s underwater on his mortgage, and he’s put his hapless best friend in charge of his signature therapeutic program.  Even the GPS on his car can’t seem to predict where he should turn next.  And his clients are struggling in their own hilarious, heartbreaking ways to keep their lives on track.  How can he help them if he can’t help himself? In Tumbledown, Robert Boswell presents a large, unforgettable cast of characters who are all failing and succeeding in various degrees to make sense of our often-irrational world. In a moving narrative twist, he boldly reckons with the extent to which tragedy can be undone, the impossible accommodated.

Check out this high-praise-indeed from David Wroblewski (The Story of Edgar Sawtelle): "If you read Tumbledown in public, beware: Boswell's story is barkingly, snort-spurtingly, people-give-you-looks funny.  Yet its humor is the most generous kind, uncynical and unsentimental, and woven through an ensemble story so large-hearted it keeps bursting its narrative seams.  The result is a brilliant, humane, engrossing argument for how infinitely whacked and contingent life can be, and therefore how desperately we need one another to survive.  I finished it with a long contented sigh, thinking, this is why I love reading novels."

If you'd like a chance at winning one of the three copies of Tumbledown, simply email your name and mailing address to thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line.  One entry per person, please.  Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on Aug. 22, at which time I'll draw the winning name.  I'll announce the lucky reader on Aug. 23.  If you'd like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words "Sign me up for the newsletter" in the body of your email.  Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning?  Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter.  Once you've done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying "I've shared" and I'll put your name in the hat twice.