The Locals - Tapa dura

A compassionate look at the American middle class and what is happening to it and the ways, right and wrong, in which it is responding. (George Saunders, Best Books of 2017)

The American novelist who has his finger on the pulse (Mark Lawson)

Dee's gifts are often dazzling and his material meticulously shaped. . . . [He] articulates complex emotional dynamics with precision and insight. (The New York Times Book Review on A Thousand Pardons)

"'A palpable contract between the very rich and the people who distrust them the least,' Joan Didion once said of the Getty Villa. Jonathan Dee understands this impossible, enduring contract, sometimes called populism-other times, theft-as well as Didion does. The Locals might be the first great Occupy novel of the twenty-first century." (Rachel Kushner, New York Times bestselling author of The Flamethrowers)

Dee does a fine job of evoking the texture of small-town New England life in the 21st century . . . He hits a range of resonant notes - the demise of traditional masculinity, the barely contained violence of the economic losers who will in a few years, or so goes the script, vote for Donald Trump, and of course the tension between America's "just about managing" and the well-off . . . Enjoyable . . . well written, engaging, texturally accurate. (Lionel Shriver, Financial Times)

"There could not be a more timely novel than The Locals. It examines the American self and American selfishness from 9/11 until today. Jonathan Dee has given us a master class in empathy and compassion, a vital book." (Nathan Hill, author of The Nix)

"Jonathan Dee's manner is so forthright, his approach so quietly intelligent and direct, his small-town America with its dreams and ambitions and sense of order and rectitude so familiar, we realize we have acknowledged nothing particularly alarming about our weakening grasp on a functioning democracy. Hiding in plain sight is the blueprint of our decline-our easy corruptibility and willed ignorance, our ethical wobbliness and eagerness to sanitize history. The Locals is an absolutely riveting novel that dares to prod us awake. Whoever has ears let them hear-indeed." (Joy Williams, author of The Visiting Privilege)

"In this moving study of how the housing bubble's burst sets a small town's citizens against each other, Jonathan Dee tells a must-read story for our age. Class struggle, tyranny, America's disillusionment after 9/11-The Locals creates a delicately drawn world impossible to forget." (Mary Karr, New York Times bestselling author of The Liar’s Club and Lit)

Slick, observant and often amusing (the Times)

An allegory of US politics that confounds expectations . . . Intriguing . . . audacious. (the Guardian)

Jonathan Dee is the author of seven novels, including The Locals, A Thousand Pardons, and The Privileges, which was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, he teaches in the graduate writing program at Syracuse University.