NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

Purity is a complex novel about a girl in search of her father, idealism, the death of privacy and the dangers of social media.

The story of a young woman, searching for herself, for her identity, for reasons to be in the world. A brilliant and sensitive tour-de-force into the globalized, complex and intertwined world inside and outside.

Purity is the name of one of the central characters in this novel and our less than pure society. Purity called “Pip” is a recent college graduate with all today’s common clichés: clever, ambitious, fatherless, aimless, and debt-strapped. Her relationships, both professional with her boss and familial with her parents are damaged by less than pure causes such as manipulation, deceit, power, and the internet’s invasion into her privacy. The result of these “impurities” is an overlying feeling of anxiety of what is coming and of what we think we know. This story conveys the idea that the more we think we know about others, the more we really need to know about ourselves. I nominated this novel because it gives the reader who may think he is different from everyone else an opportunity to realize his similarity.

An epic novel that is both sweeping and highly personal taking on themes such as personal and national identity as well as the bounds of privacy. All strands of the story are engagingly woven together in this very modern portrayal of a woman trying to find her father while she flees as far away as possible from her idiosyncratic mother.

Purity is a daring and penetrating book. A complex and clever story, but with freshness of tone and touch.