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A Novel
by Jami Attenberg
From New York Times bestselling author Jami Attenberg comes a dazzling novel of family, following a troubled mother and her two daughters over forty years and through a swiftly changing American landscape as they seek lives they can fully claim as their own.
The women of the Cohen family are in crisis. Triggered by the death of their patriarch, Rudy, the glue that held them all together, everyone's lives soon take a dramatic turn.
Shelly, the younger of the two Cohen sisters, runs off to the West Coast to immerse herself in the emerging (and lucrative) world of technology. Her sister, Nancy, gets married at the age of twenty-one to a traveling salesman with a shadowy lifestyle, while their mother, Frieda, hurls herself into a boozy, troubled existence in Miami, trying to forget the past even as it haunts her.
But they each learn in different ways that running from the past can't save you—and then must make life-altering decisions about what they want their family to be and what they need to move forward.
Beginning in the 1970s and spanning forty years, A Reason to See You Again takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic journey through motherhood, the American workforce, the tech industry, the self-help movement, inherited trauma, the ever-evolving ways we communicate with one another, and the many unexpected forms that love can take.
"Entertaining and empathetic...Attenberg knows how to imperil her characters and love them at the same time...Readers will happily sit with these women through it all." —Booklist (starred review)
"The vicissitudes of [Attenberg's] characters are undeniably absorbing." —Kirkus Reviews
"There isn't much of a plot, but the novel is carried along by deliciously realistic descriptions of the Cohens' complex relationships. It's an admirable portrait of a distinctly unhappy family." —Publishers Weekly
"Attenberg knows where to shine a spotlight to reveal characters' personalities and dynamics...[Her] characters are as loveable as they are maddening, and the combination of choices and luck makes the novel's events feel as random—and genuine—as real life...[A] masterful dysfunctional family story." —Shelf Awareness
"Glimmers of humor lift a narrative that time-hops and head-hops, as the Cohen women come together and fall apart, squabble and make up...Attenberg's fans will enjoy this novel, as will those who like sharply observed dysfunctional mother-daughter stories." —Library Journal
"When their father passes, the Cohen sisters and their mother seem rudderless and strike out in opposite directions. Spanning 40 years, this moving saga asks if love can heal brokenness." —Saturday Evening Post
"I loved leaping through time with the four Cohen women—Frieda, Nancy, Shelly, and Jess. Each woman is intelligent and self-sabotaging—the way we all can be—and they love each other fiercely, often from a careful distance. Attenberg's writing is sharp and incisive—it's a pleasure to watch the patterns she created unfold over forty years of these women's lives." —Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful and Dear Edward
This information about A Reason to See You Again 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.
Jami Attenberg is a New York Times bestselling author of seven books of fiction, including The Middlesteins and All Grown Up; a memoir, I Came All This Way to Meet You; and, most recently, 1000 Words: A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round. She is the founder of the annual #1000WordsofSummer project, and maintains the popular Craft Talk newsletter year-round. Her work has been published in sixteen languages. She lives in New Orleans.
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