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    Carousel Court: A Novel
    Carousel Court: A Novel
    Carousel Court: A Novel
    Audiobook10 hours

    Carousel Court: A Novel

    Written by Joe McGinniss

    Narrated by Joy Osmanski and Corey Brill

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Joe McGinniss Jr., who is “poised to become one of our sharpest observers of life in America at the start of the twenty-first century” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), returns with one of the most engrossing, unnerving, and exhilarating novels in recent memory: a viscerally absorbing look at the seductive—and destructive—cutting edge of marriage.

    Nick and Phoebe Maguire are a young couple who move cross-country to Southern California in search of a fresh start for themselves and their infant son following a trauma. But they arrive at the worst possible economic time, cemented into the dark heart of foreclosure alley and surrounded by neighbors swamped by debt who set fire to their belongings, flee in the dead of night, and eye one another with suspicion while keeping shotguns by their beds. Trapped, broke, and increasingly desperate, Nick and Phoebe each devise their own plan to claw their way back into the middle class and beyond. Hatched under one roof, their two separate, secret agendas will inevitably collide.

    “A fearless novel about a family and a society on the brink…Harrowing but, against all odds, ultimately tender” (O, The Oprah Magazine), Carousel Court is an unforgettable vision of contemporary life. It has the ambition of our most serious literary work and the soul of a thriller, managing to be simultaneously sexy, scary, and powerfully moving. Most of all, it offers an unflinching portrait of modern marriage in a nation scarred by vanished jobs, psychotropic cure-alls, infidelity via iPhone, and ruthless choices. “Fast…Foreboding…Joe McGinniss spins an edgy tale, often laced with a reporter’s eye for the little details that make characters pop” (The Washington Post). He leaves you simultaneously gutted and grateful—and curious what your partner is up to on that electronic device across the room.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateAug 2, 2016
    ISBN9781508222347
    Author

    Joe McGinniss

    Joe McGinniss Jr. is the author of Carousel Court and The Delivery Man. He lives in Washington, DC, with his family.

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    Reviews for Carousel Court

    3.5/5

    27 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This sick sad saga of the lives of the aspirationals during the Financial Crisis may linger with me for a while, but the lack of even one likable character is daunting. Lured out to LA by a job offer that is later rescinded, Nick and Phoebe struggle to make payments on their McMansion in a semi-abandoned development rife with home invasions and coyote kills. Phoebe, in pharma sales, grants sexual favors to MDs to keep her bonus. Nick rents out houses he doesn't own. The desperation is deep and the ending seemingly tacked on. But the era was so brutal that why shouldn't a recap novel be the same?
    • 3/5
      Carousel Court, the second novel from Joe McGinniss Jr., is a brutal take on the mortgage/housing collapse that ruined the dreams and lives of so many homeowners in the late 2000s. Those were the days when banks used unbelievably low interest rate home loans with minimal down payment requirements to lure first-time buyers into purchasing homes they could not actually afford to own. Nick and Phoebe Maguire, a young married couple living in Boston, were two of the people who got caught up in all the excitement of what seemed to be a sure way to make some easy money: move to California, buy way more house than they can really afford, live in that house long enough for its value to rise well above what they owe on it, and flip the house for a quick profit that can be put into an even bigger home they can't really afford.Considering how many people were doing exactly that, the plan did not seem to be all that risky to Nick and Phoebe. What happens, though, when the market collapses and home prices drop like a rock because no one is buying? Well, as Nick and Phoebe learned, that is the point at which your life pretty much goes to hell. In a game of musical chairs of this magnitude, someone is always going to be left standing at the end of the game- and this time, it is homeowners like Nick and Phoebe who believed that housing prices would rise forever. Their chair was pulled out from under them so suddenly that they never even thought about sitting down.Now Nick and Phoebe are just trying to hold on as long as they can without having the bank repossess their home. Carousel Court, the street they live on, is one on which every homeowner (with a single exception) is trying to do the same thing. One neighbor has taken to burning everything he owns in his backyard pool, one spends all his time in the well-armed orange tent he has pitched in his front yard to scare off looters, and the others do all they can to pretend that the world is not collapsing around them. In the meantime, the California job that convinced Nick and Phoebe to relocate from Boston to Los Angeles in the first place does not exist when Nick gets there to claim it. And Phoebe, rather than being able to spend three months off with her young son, has to scramble to get a position with the pharmaceutical company she quit in Boston - a job she detests for the way it forces her to degrade herself to the doctors who purchase what she is selling (sometimes it seems all she is selling is herself). Unable to focus on her job, and herself hopelessly addicted to some of the very pills she is selling, Phoebe is unable even to take care of her son, much less worry about her home and husband. But she has a plan, one that she cannot share with Nick if their marriage is to survive. And unbeknownst to Phoebe, Nick has a plan of his own, an illegal one that allows him to pocket thousands of dollars a month - until someone bigger and meaner than him decides to cut him out of the deal. So now facing imminent financial ruin, a failed marriage, and with little hope that things will ever work out for them in the future, Nick and Phoebe have hit rock bottom.Bottom Line: Carousel Court is a frank look at what happens to good people when they lose control of their lives. It is difficult at times to have much sympathy for the book's two main characters because they seem to be so willing, almost eager, to do anything it takes to ensure their individual survival. That makes for difficult reading at times, but the book's bigger flaw is that, about half way through, it reaches a point at which very little seems to be happening other than what happened the day before – and the day before that, and the day before that. If the book had been perhaps fifty pages shorter, its message would have been a more memorable one – as it is, that message is muted by the repetition that surrounds it.
    • 4/5
      Carousel Court by Joe McGniniss Jr. is a 2016 Simon & Schuster publication. This novel absolutely nails the dark, depressing, and desolate desperation that befell the upwardly mobile college educated classes after the economic fallout of 2008. Phoebe and Nick are parents to a toddler named Jackson, living in a home at Carousel Court, both working night and day, to keep their heads above water, but drowning, just like their neighbors who are taking desperate measures too, while Jackson spends more time with his nanny than he does his parents.Nick and Phoebe’s marriage has broken down, with Phoebe addicted to a myriad of prescription medications, which nearly got her and Jackson killed, and threw the couple into an even deeper tailspin, leading up to their current day issues. They are deeply in debt now after moving to California at the wrong moment in time. To ease the pressure of their financial burdens, each of them privately schemes to dig their way of debt, but neither plan is a good one, or an honest one, and could come with a heavy price, not to mention all the risks involved, on all fronts.Sure enough, things go from bad to worse as their plans blow up spectacularly, which will lead to a do or die decision. Will Phoebe and Nick make it as a couple or are they too damaged to recover? Well, I’m afraid I’m sort of at a loss for words here. This novel is very dark, disturbing on a many, many levels, and while I watched this couple crash and burn, I kept holding on to this ridiculous hope they could somehow manage to wake up and smell the coffee before it was too late, for them and for their son, who is as much a victim of this as anyone. Be warned, this book is very raw, disheartening, and not just dark, but almost black, it is so very bleak. But, it’s like a train wreck. I couldn’t keep myself from watching it happen. There is very little joy in this feverish portrait of the modern -day rat race, the pursuit of the failing American dream, the pressure that robs couples of anything resembling respect and takes the biggest toll on their children. The quirky, and sometimes sinister neighbors, combined with other threats from wild animals, as well as the constant presence of cicadas, help build the atmosphere around Phoebe and Nick as the speed increases toward an inevitable head on collision. But, after all was said and done, the ending was ultimately satisfying and I will admit, I actually heard myself exhale.I’m not sure which audience to recommend this book to. It is not a cheerful novel to be sure, but one many of you can certainly appreciate, remembering the hard times endured during the financial crisis, while highlighting the habits of our times, with Starbucks and iPhones playing a large role in the story, alongside the troubling abuse of prescription drugs. So, overall, I commend the author and his skill as a writer, for capturing the essence of the times so perfectly, for creating such vivid, conflicted, and flawed characters, building such incredible tension, and for his ability to draw it all together with a conclusion I could appreciate and respect. 4 stars
    • 4/5
      This is a tough book to review. It takes place right after the global financial crisis, when a couple from Boston, move to Southern California to grab their piece of the American Dream, in this case the get rich quick, fix and flip.There should be no surprise about how this works out. The problem with the book is that the two main characters are both reprehensible. There is very little to like about either of them, and since from the beginning you know how most of the book will turn out, reading it becomes a bit of a chore.