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    Mating

    A Novel (National Book Award Winner)

    Part of Vintage International

    Author Norman Rush
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    Paperback
    $18.00 US
    Knopf | Vintage
    On sale Sep 01, 1992 | 496 Pages | 9780679737094
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    Winner of the National Book Award 

    Set in the African republic of Botswana—the locale of his acclaimed short story collection, Whites—Norman Rush’s novel simultaneously explores the highest of intellectual high grounds and the most tortuous ravines of the erotic. tackles the geopolitics of poverty and the mystery of what men and women really want.
    • WINNER | 1991
      National Book Awards
    © Michael Lionstar
    Norman Rush is the author of four works of fiction: Whites, a collection of stories, and three novels, Subtle Bodies, Mating, and Mortals. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Best American Short Stories. Mating was the recipient of the National Book Award. Rush and his wife live in Rockland County, New York. View titles by Norman Rush
    “Exhilarating…vigorous and luminous…Few books evoke the state of love at its apogee.” –The New York Times Book Review

    “The best rendering of erotic politics…since D.H. Lawrence…a marvelous novel, one in which a resolutely independent voice claims new imaginative territory…The voice of Rush’s narrator is immediate, instructive and endearing.” –The New York Review of Books
     
    “Witty, raunchy…prodigiously aspiring…a remarkable book…His protagonist is a memorable female character: a continually shifting prism that revolves from dashing to needy, from witty to morose…wonderfully varied and pungent.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review

    “A dryly comic love story about grown-up people who take the life of the mind seriously and know they sometimes sound silly…Mating is state-of-the-art artifice.” –Newsweek

    “It draws the reader steadily in. Not toward the heart of darkness but toward brilliant illumination.” -The New York Times
     
    “Bold and ambitious…delightful, provocative.” –San Francisco Chronicle
     
    “Brilliantly written…utterly sui generis!...Rush has alerted us to the transfiguring power of passion…He deploys the narrative voice with…brio…wit and persuasiveness.” –Mirabella
     
     “An audaciously clever novel with substance as well as flash.” –Detroit Free Press

    About

    Winner of the National Book Award 

    Set in the African republic of Botswana—the locale of his acclaimed short story collection, Whites—Norman Rush’s novel simultaneously explores the highest of intellectual high grounds and the most tortuous ravines of the erotic. tackles the geopolitics of poverty and the mystery of what men and women really want.

    Awards

    • WINNER | 1991
      National Book Awards

    Author

    © Michael Lionstar
    Norman Rush is the author of four works of fiction: Whites, a collection of stories, and three novels, Subtle Bodies, Mating, and Mortals. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Best American Short Stories. Mating was the recipient of the National Book Award. Rush and his wife live in Rockland County, New York. View titles by Norman Rush

    Praise

    “Exhilarating…vigorous and luminous…Few books evoke the state of love at its apogee.” –The New York Times Book Review

    “The best rendering of erotic politics…since D.H. Lawrence…a marvelous novel, one in which a resolutely independent voice claims new imaginative territory…The voice of Rush’s narrator is immediate, instructive and endearing.” –The New York Review of Books
     
    “Witty, raunchy…prodigiously aspiring…a remarkable book…His protagonist is a memorable female character: a continually shifting prism that revolves from dashing to needy, from witty to morose…wonderfully varied and pungent.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review

    “A dryly comic love story about grown-up people who take the life of the mind seriously and know they sometimes sound silly…Mating is state-of-the-art artifice.” –Newsweek

    “It draws the reader steadily in. Not toward the heart of darkness but toward brilliant illumination.” -The New York Times
     
    “Bold and ambitious…delightful, provocative.” –San Francisco Chronicle
     
    “Brilliantly written…utterly sui generis!...Rush has alerted us to the transfiguring power of passion…He deploys the narrative voice with…brio…wit and persuasiveness.” –Mirabella
     
     “An audaciously clever novel with substance as well as flash.” –Detroit Free Press

    Additional formats

    • Mating
      Mating
      A Novel (National Book Award Winner)
      Norman Rush
      9798217286843
      Audiobook Download
      Random House Audio
      Feb 03, 2026
    • Mating
      Mating
      A Novel (National Book Award Winner)
      Norman Rush
      9780307789358
      Ebook
      Vintage
      Oct 12, 2011
    • Mating
      Mating
      A Novel (National Book Award Winner)
      Norman Rush
      9798217286843
      Audiobook Download
      Random House Audio
      Feb 03, 2026
    • Mating
      Mating
      A Novel (National Book Award Winner)
      Norman Rush
      9780307789358
      Ebook
      Vintage
      Oct 12, 2011

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