In This Edition of
The BookBrowse Review
The BookBrowse Review
Published December 4, 2024
ISSN: 1930-0018
The BookBrowse Review
Published December 4, 2024
ISSN: 1930-0018
Contents
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Literary Fiction
Historical Fiction
Essays
Poetry & Novels in Verse
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Biography/Memoir
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True Crime
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| Critics: |
A modern and classic story of family, I'll Come to You chronicles intersecting lives over the course of one year —1995 —anchored by the anticipation and arrival of a child.
With empathy, insight, and humor, Rebecca Kauffman explores overlapping narratives involving a couple whose struggle to become pregnant has both softened and hardened them, a woman whose husband of forty years has left her for reasons he's unwilling to share and the man who is now disastrously attempting to woo her, a couple in denial about a looming health crisis, and their son who is fumbling toward middle age and can't stop lying. Ultimately, these storylines crescendo and converge into a dramatic and harrowing turn of events. With heart, wit, and courage, and through pain, these characters traverse territory that both challenges and defines the bonds of family.
Sweeping yet compact, I'll Come to You investigates themes of intimacy, memory, loss, grief, and reconciliation, and the wonder, terror, frustration, fear, and magic of brushing up against the unknowable--both around us and within us.
"A finely tuned family drama ... The author has drawn authentic and believable portraits of these flawed but decent people as they negotiate life's upheavals ... Kauffman's fans will love this." —Publishers Weekly
"Kauffman takes time to explore the inner lives of her characters, some more than others, and each character's vulnerabilities are made clear through the compassionate narration ... Throughout, the characters are grasping at what they hold dear, fighting insecurities and jealousies that coexist with desperate love and hope. Kauffman sets a scene that ultimately allows for generosity and togetherness. Thoughtful characterization and light humor make for a pleasant, if not gripping, novel." —Kirkus Reviews
"An exquisite work of fiction that shines a light on one year in the life of a family—their truths and lies, vows and betrayals, seductive dreams and deepest fears. Like Elizabeth Strout and Marilynne Robinson before her, Kauffman is brilliant at drawing out the subtle links between lives—and at capturing the mix of awe and terror that exists within us all." —Jonathan Lee, The Great Mistake
"Ordinary lives are rendered with extraordinary insight in I'll Come to You, a novel as delightful as it is darkly funny, at once caustic and profoundly compassionate. Rebecca Kauffman, where have you been all my life?" —Andrew Ridker, author of The Altruists and Hope
"I'll Come to You is a deft, engrossing novel, full of subtle humor and compassion. In scenes as precise and intimate as lighted windows on a dark street, Rebecca Kauffman explores those everyday encounters and accidents that can loom so large they overwhelm a life." —Sofia Samatar, author of The White Mosque: A Memoir
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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