{"product_id":"an-absence-of-cousins-a-novel","title":"An Absence of Cousins: A Novel","description":"Ilka Weisz is in need not just of friends but 'elective cousins'. She has left her home in New York to accept a junior teaching post at the prestigious Concordance Institute, a liberal college in bucolic Connecticut. But how can she, a Jewish refugee from Vienna, find a new set to belong to - a surrogate family? Might the Shakespeares - the institute's director and his wry, acerbic wife - hold the key?  In these interlinked New Yorker stories, Lore Segal evokes the comic melancholy of the outsider and the ineffectual ambitions of a progressive, predominantly WASP-ish institution. Tragedy and loss haunt characters as they plan an academic symposium on genocide, while their privileged lives contrast starkly with those on a derelict housing project next door.  Includes the acclaimed New Yorker podcast story, \"The Reverse Bug\".","brand":"Sort of Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40903076741205,"sku":"9781914502101N","price":11.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/files\/4cf58382-60e0-484f-8cb4-e4f775f4cc6f.jpg?v=1727255774","url":"https:\/\/smeikalbooks.co.uk\/en-us\/products\/an-absence-of-cousins-a-novel","provider":"smeikalbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}