The Portable Veblen is a dazzlingly original novel that’s as big-hearted as it is laugh-out-loud funny. Set in Palo Alto, amid the culture clash of new money & old (antiestablishment) values, & with the specter of our current wars looming across its pages, The Portable Veblen is an unforgettable look at the way we live now.
A young couple on the brink of marriage—the charming Veblen & her fiancé Paul, a brilliant neurologist—find their engagement in danger of collapse. Along the way they weather everything from each other’s dysfunctional families, to the attentions of a seductive pharmaceutical heiress, to an intimate tête-à-tête with a very charismatic squirrel.
Longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction & Finalist for the Baileys Prize for Women’s Fiction