Description

The author of The Most Fun We Ever Had returns with a brilliantly observed family drama, in which a long marriage faces imminent derailment from events both past and present
‘I FINISHED THIS WONDERFUL BOOK IN FLOODS OF TEARS’ JESSIE BURTON
‘SUCH A PLEASURE’ CLARE CHAMBERS
‘WITTY AND INSIGHTFUL’ BONNIE GARMUS

At fifty-seven, Julia Ames finds herself with an improbably lovely life. She has a husband she loves, two happy children and a contented existence in the suburbs.

She’s unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, a soon-to-be empty nest, and a seductive resurgence of the past – all of which threaten to derail Julia’s hard-earned peace.

Wise, witty and deeply moving, this brilliantly observed domestic drama asks what it takes to make – and not to break – a family.

‘A FAMILY SAGA TO SAVE AS A TREAT AND DEVOUR WHEN YOU SHOULD BE DOING SOMETHING ELSE’ INDEPENDENT
‘LOMBARDO IS THE NEW ANNE TYLER, WITH TEETH’ ERICKA WALLER
‘A BIG AMERICAN NOVEL TO GET TOTALLY LOST IN’ CLAIRE POWELL

Publisher Review

Witty and insightful. A powerful exploration of marriage, motherhood, and self — Bonnie Garmus, author of LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY It was such a pleasure to bury myself in this book, a literary novel of family life which moved and surprised me. Claire Lombardo creates such interesting characters and predicaments and manipulates the revelations and emotional bombshells so expertly that you read on ravenously — Clare Chambers, author of SMALL PLEASURES This is such a wonderful book: unsentimental yet full of feeling, with such sharply-written, loving and generous characterisation. It has everything I adore in a novel. I finished it in floods of tears, and had to sit for a minute or two to pull myself together. It absolutely floored me. What a joy to let a writer of such talent suffuse us with a life’s worth of humour and pain, affection and mess! — Jessie Burton, author of THE MINIATURIST A big American novel to get totally lost in. Rich and compelling and funny and true — Claire Powell, author of AT THE TABLE Pitch-perfect. . . Lombardo is compulsively readable and consistently funny, and it’s impossible to look away as Julia continues to self-sabotage. This domestic drama hits all the right notes * Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review) * A family saga to save as a treat and devour when you should be doing something else, in which events past and present upset a long marriage * Independent * Lombardo loves her characters, taking time to peel back each of their layers through the time-lapse structure of the novel and her rich descriptions. . . A sure bet for fans of Richard Russo and Jane Smiley * Booklist * Sparkling. . . Readers will be torn between their instinct to race to the finish and their desire to savour every page * Publisher’s Weekly Summer Reads *