karlmarx. com: A Love Story

by Susan Coll

Overview

Ella Kennedy may not be perfect, but she's smart, she's dedicated, and she's finally managed to find a fascinating thesis subject in the morass of Marxist political theory: Eleanor Marx, the youngest daughter of Karl and a bright light in the Marxist movement, who famously declined after a disastrous love affair. With tenacity, with vigor, Ella Kennedy, Ph.D. student extraordinaire, begins delving into the world of Eleanor just as she takes a job setting up a Marxist mail-order catalogue at the fledgling Institute of Thought in Washington, D.C. — a veritable three-ring circus.

When Ella's own life begins to parallel Eleanor's — right down to the domineering father (Ella's is known as the king of discount merchandising) and the distant yet brilliant lover — the theoretical, the political, and the personal collide in a hilarious romp of a novel. Wacky, heartwarming, and deliciously smart, this novel of heartbreak and hilarity on the doctoral circuit is the intersection of Laura Zigman, Nora Ephron, and Richard Russo.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416552086
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	02/01/2007
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Susan Coll's articles and reviews have appeared in the International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post Book World, and The Asian Wall Street Journal. She lives in Maryland with her husband, the author and journalist Steve Coll, and their three children.

Editorial Reviews

Jacki Lyden author of Daughter of the Queen of Sheba If Jane Austen had placed her intelligent and sophisticated heroine, Emma, into the vast urban landscape of early-twenty-first-century life and not left her dodging about those gardens and great halls, she would be reborn as Susan Coll's questing and delightfully droll Ella Kennedy, mixing manners, meaning, and oh, pursuing not Mr. Knightley but Nigel...irresistible....Read it!

Binnie Kirshenbaum author of Pure Poetry karlmarx.com lives up to its deliciously wicked, wry, and witty title. With this charming debut novel, Susan Coll manages to stylishly juggle the contemporary dilemmas of her heroine, Ella Kennedy, the political theories of Karl Marx, and the tragic story of his daughter Eleanor. The result is a thinking girl's treat.

Bob Woodward karlmarx.com is a powerful, hilarious story about the convergence of history, .com mania, personal secrets, and unexplainable sexual obsession. There's a little bit (or a lot) of Susan Coll's heroine, Ella, in all of us. This is the best novel about teetering on the edge of — and taking the plunge into — contemporary madness that I've read in years.

From the Publisher