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Another Place You've Never Been explores the intersection of human experience amidst the minutiae of everyday life.
Most of us have experienced what it's like to know what someone is going to say right before they say it. Or perhaps you have been shocked by the irrefutable phenomena of coincidence, when your life intersects with another's in the most unlikely way. In gripping prose marked by stark simplicity, Another Place You've Never Been by debut novelist Rebecca Kauffman explores the intersection of human experience amidst the minutiae of everyday life.
In her mid-thirties and living in Buffalo, NY (where she is originally from), Tracy spends most days at the restaurant where she works as a hostess, despite her aspirations of a career that would make use of her creative talents. Tracy's life is explored not only though her own personal point of view, but also through the viewpoints of other characters, wherein Tracy may only make a peripheral appearance or even emerge at different periods in her life.
Kauffman subtly exposes the lives of these characters - alongside the presences of spiritually mysterious Native American figures that appear throughout - and gradually reveals the true purposes of both as their paths intersect.
"Starred Review. an undeniably moving and emotionally true portrayal of the kitchen sink of human experience." - Publishers Weekly
"In this debut novel, characters affected by 'the cruelty of carelessness' nonetheless make the best of what they get." - Kirkus
"Another Place You've Never Been is a gorgeous, witty novel that reminded me of Olive Kitteridge ... if Olive had been a down-on-her-luck waitress dreaming of love in upstate New York. I loved this kindhearted, beautiful book." - Amanda Ward, author of The Same Sky and How to Be Lost
"[M]esmerizing... Clear-eyed, witty, and dazzlingly inventive, this is a novel that disturbs and delights. An extraordinary debut." - Brian Morton, author of Starting Out in the Evening and Florence Gordon
This information about Another Place You've Never Been was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rebecca Kauffman received her MFA in creative writing from New York University. She is the author of The Gunners and Another Place You've Never Been, which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Originally from rural northeastern Ohio, she now lives in Virginia.
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