Tish Cohen

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Published by: Harper Perennial
Release Date: May 8, 2007
Pages: 276
ISBN13: 978-0061131318

 

Synopsis

Jack Madigan is, by many accounts, blessed. Thanks to his legendary rockstar father, he lives an enviable existence in a once-glorious, but now crumbling, Boston town house with his teenage son, Harlan. There's just one problem: Jack is agoraphobic. While living on his dad's dwindling royalties hasn't been easy, Jack and Harlan have bumbled along just fine. Until the money runs out...and so does Jack's luck.

Suddenly, the bank is foreclosing, Jack's ex is threatening to take Harlan to California, and Lucinda, the little waif next door, won't stay out of his kitchen. Or his life. The harder Jack tries to keep Lucinda out, the harder she pushes her way in — to his house and, eventually, his heart. Things look up when the real estate agent, Dorrie Allsop, arrives so green she still has the price tag dangling from her Heritage Estates blazer. But even Dorrie's overworked tongue can't hide the house's potential and, ultimately, a solid offer thrusts Jack towards the paralyzing reality that he no longer has a home.

To save his sanity, Jack must do the impossible and outwit the real estate agent, win back his house and keep his son at home. Town House is a sweet and serious look at one man's struggle to survive within the walls of his own fears. And it's through the very people he tries so hard to push out of his life that he finds a way to break down those walls and, eventually, step outside.

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“A constellation of characters whose idiosyncrasies make the family of Little Miss Sunshine look like Ozzie and Harriet.”
—Kirkus Reviews

"Cohen's manuscript, about the agoraphobic son of a dead '70s rock star who falls for the incompetent real estate agent hired to unload his childhood home...has somehow managed to achieve the ultimate rarity in Hollywood—universal praise."
—Publishers Weekly

"Winsomely told...there's more than quirky charm and endearing oddness in the characters Cohen creates. They're sharp and can bite in the barbed way that the more mordant inhabitants of Alexander McCall Smith's “44 Scotland Street” do; Cohen's Lucie is a North American near-relative of McCall Smith's Bertie, and that's an incredible achievement in itself.”
—The Globe and Mail

“Terrifically written: Cohen’s affinity for her nut-job characters is infectious and will keep readers involved.”
—Publishers Weekly

"In her first novel, Tish Cohen has written an original portrait of a pathetic man that is at times sardonically comic and humanly poignant...Cohen's Jack Madigan is a three-dimensional, albeit anomalous, lost soul of our modern, twisted, fractured society."
—Rex Pickett, NYT bestselling author of Sideways

"Town House is everything you could ask for in a novel: touching, wry, bewitching, eccentric, and riveting to the end. I love this book and eagerly await Tish Cohen's next."
—Sara Gruen, NYT bestselling author of Water for Elephants

"In Town House, Tish Cohen pulls together the most intriguing and uniquely endearing cast of characters of any novel I've recently read. Her crisp observations illustrate how the most unlikely relationships can often inspire our most challenging triumphs. Equally funny and insightful, Town House is a sophisticated treat."
—Josh Kilmer-Purcell, NYT bestselling author of I Am Not Myself These Days

"In Town House, Tish Cohen has created a cast of characters that would make Woody Allen weep with envy. A big-hearted, delicious novel that begs for a film."
—Martha O'Connor, author of The Bitch Posse

"An achingly funny yet wincingly real portrait of a man so believable you want to laugh with him, scream at him, and push him out of his doorway. Town House is a gem of a novel and in it Tish Cohen displays a remarkable understanding of the human heart."
—Matt Haig, author of The Dead Fathers Club

"You’d have to look awfully hard to find a novel with a bigger cast of memorable characters than Tish Cohen manages to squeeze into one Boston Town House."
—Philip Beard, author of Dear Zoe and Lost in the Garden

"Town House is a poignant, acerbic and charming novel with real heart. Make room on your bookshelf for Tish Cohen."
—Barbara Delinsky