It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
Gain

Gain

Summary

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Overstory and Bewilderment, a visionary novel about the failings of the American dream.

'It's not possible for powers to write an uninteresting book' Margaret Atwood

In Lacewood, Illinois, Laura Bodey, a divorced mother of two and real estate agent, plunges into a new existence when she learns that she has cancer.

This same small town is home to Clare & Company, a soap manufacturer begun by three brothers in nineteenth-century Boston. Over the course of more than a century, it transforms into a powerful international corporation.

Clare & Company's stunning growth reflects America's kaleidoscopic history, yet for Laura and her family, this wild success has profound and lasting consequences.

'Penetrating and splendidly written... Dazzling' New York Times

Reviews

  • Erudite, penetrating and splendidly written... Dazzling
    New York Times

About the author

Richard Powers

Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory and his most recent novel, Bewilderment, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He lives in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more