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Mothers - both reluctant and euphoric - ride the familial tide of joy, pride, regret, guilt, and love in these stories of resilient and flawed women. In a battle between a teenage daughter and her mother, wheat bread and plain yogurt become weapons. An aimless college student, married to her much older professor, sneaks cigarettes while caring for their newborn son. On the eve of her husband's fiftieth birthday, a pilfered fifth of vodka, an unexpected tattoo, and rogue teenagers leave a woman questioning her place. And in a suite of stories, we follow capricious, ambitious single mother Ruby and her cautious, steadfast daughter Nora through their tumultuous life - stray men, stray cats, and psychedelic drugs - in 1970s California.
Gimlet-eyed and emotionally generous, achingly real and beautifully written, these unforgettable stories cut to the heart of the connection and conflict in families. Shout Her Lovely Name heralds the arrival of a stunning new writer.
"Call it fiction, but this collection is achingly true to life when it comes to the many ways mothers and daughters grow together and apart, over and over again." - O, the Oprah Magazine
"The characters are irresistible ... Serber writes with exquisite patience and sensitivity, and is an expert in the many ways that love throws people together and splits them apart, often at the same time." - Wall Street Journal
"Mothers and daughters go at it in the way only mothers and daughters can, with full hearts and claws out, in Natalie Serber's funny, bittersweet collection... . It's the perfect firecracker of a book to 'accidentally' stick in the beach bag of the freewheeling mother who refuses to give up her independence and grow up, or to leave on the chaise lounge of the type-A daughter who's forced to grow up and never gets to be a girl."
- Vanity Fair
"From its first page, Serber's debut collection plunges us into the humid heat and lightning of a perfect storm: that of American mothers and daughters struggling for power, love, meaning, and identity... .Serber's writing sparkles: practical, strong, brazenly modern, marbled with superb descriptions."
- San Francisco Chronicle
"Mothers and daughters burst from these pages in stories about food, boyfriends, birthdays, husbands and more." - Houston Chronicle
"There is an element of the miraculous in a collection of stories whose characters reveal the fundamental predicament of all parents and children... .[Serber is] clearly writing not from some high plane of solitude but from within the mess of life."
- Huffington Post
"Starred Review. Serber's stellar first collection packs an emotional wallop right from the start...sharp, somber, and sparkling commentary... As provocative as it is poignant, Serber's searingly honest depiction of the complex, contentious, and confusing bonds at the heart of all families heralds an exceptional new talent."
- Booklist
"As its title implies, Natalie Serber's collection Shout Her Lovely Name is a triumphant battle cry of hard-won victory over the stalemate and injuries between mothers and daughters. She leaves the reader amazed at the tenacity, tenderness, and truth of her characters."
- Siobhan Fallon, author of You Know When the Men are Gone
"In the tradition of Lorrie Moore and Tobias Wolff, Natalie Serber's stories uncover the secret hearts of seemingly ordinary people. Funny, heart-felt, and keenly perceptive, this is a book worth shouting about."
- Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply and Stay Awake
This information about Shout Her Lovely Name 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.
Natalie Serber received an MFA from Warren Wilson College. Her work has appeared in The Bellingham Review and Gulf Coast, among others, and her awards include the Tobias Wolff Award. She teaches writing at various universities and lives with her family in Portland, Oregon.
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