02278cam a2200313 4500 515703645 TxAuBib 20211202120000.0 210730s2021||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2021036606 9780802158888 HRD 27.00 0802158889 HRD 27.00 TxAuBib Ball, Bethany. The pessimists [BOOK] : a novel / Bethany Ball. First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition. New York : Grove Press, 2021. 291 pages ; 22 cm. "Welcome to small town Connecticut, a place whose inhabitants seem to have it all-the status, the homes, the money, and the ennui. There's Tripp and Virginia, beloved hosts whom the community idolizes, and whose basement hides among other things a secretstash of guns and a drastic plan to survive the end times. There's Gunter and Rachel, recent transplants who left New York City to raise their children, only to feel imprisoned by the banality of suburbia. And Richard and Margot, community veterans whoseextramarital affairs and battles with mental health are disguised by their enviably polished veneers and perfect children. At the center of it all is the Petra School, the most coveted of all the private schools in the state, a supposed utopia of mindfulness and creativity, with a history as murky and suspect as our character's inner worlds. With deep wit and delicious incisiveness, in The Pessimists, Bethany Ball peels back the veneer of upper class white suburbia to expose the destructive consequences of unchecked privilege and moral apathy in a world that is rapidly evolving without them. This is a superbly drawn portrait of a community, and its couples, torn apart by unmet desires, duplicity, hypocrisy, and dangerous levels of discontent"-- Provided by publisher. 20211202. Married people Fiction. Small town life Fiction. Interpersonal relations Fiction. Private schools Fiction. Secrecy Fiction. Suburbs Fiction. Connecticut Fiction. Domestic fiction.