All This Could Be Yours
Jami Attenberg
(Author)
Description
From critically acclaimed New York Times best-selling author Jami Attenberg comes a novel of family secrets: think the drama of Big Little Lies set in the heat of a New Orleans summer. "If I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am," says Alex Tuchman of her parents. Now that her father, Victor, is on his deathbed, Alex--a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister--feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.) She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tight-lipped mother, Barbra. As Barbra fends off Alex's unrelenting questions, she reflects on her tumultuous life with Victor. Meanwhile Gary, Alex's brother, is incommunicado, trying to get his movie career off the ground in Los Angeles. And Gary's wife, Twyla, is having a nervous breakdown, buying up all the lipstick in drugstores around New Orleans and bursting into crying fits. Dysfunction is at its peak. As family members grapple with Victor's history, they must figure out a way to move forward--with one another, for themselves, and for the sake of their children. All This Could Be Yours is a timely, piercing exploration of what it means to be caught in the web of a toxic man who abused his power; it shows how those webs can entangle a family for generations, and what it takes to--maybe, hopefully--break free. With her signature "sparkling prose" (Marie Claire) and incisive wit, Jami Attenberg deftly explores one of the most important subjects of our age.Product Details
Price
$15.99
$14.87
Publisher
Ecco Press
Publish Date
September 15, 2020
Pages
320
Dimensions
5.2 X 7.9 X 0.9 inches | 0.55 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780358361336
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About the Author
JAMI ATTENBERG is the New York Times best-selling author of seven books of fiction, including The Middlesteins and All Grown Up. She has contributed essays to the New York Times Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times, and Longreads, among other publications. She lives in New Orleans.
Reviews
Named a most-anticipated title in BuzzFeed * BookRiot * LitHub * The Millions * The Week * Good Housekeeping* Kirkus Reviews Named a best fall book in Time * People * Entertainment Weekly * Salon * BBC * BuzzFeed *Refinery29 * Vogue * Vulture * Bustle * Cosmopolitan * New York Post * Nylon * Bust * Hello Giggles * USA Today * Observer * PopSugar * Newsday * Woman's Day * St. Louis Post-Dispatch * Inside Hook * She Knows "Attenberg gets so deep into the psyches of her characters that the story ends up seeming electric with ruin, and with possible resurrection . . . This is how you write a very good novel about a very bad man . . . All This Could Be Yours is full of hope--but it is to say that the novel is most powerful when it's in honest open battle with that which makes hope so difficult in the first place."
-- New York Times "All This Could Be Yours is an engaging portrait of the unshakable connection of family."
-- Vogue "Complicated families are Attenberg's specialty, and she more than delivers on that premise here."
-- Buzzfeed "Told from multiple perspectives, All This Could Be Yours illustrates the heartbreak, isolation, and chaos that comes from really getting to know your family."
-- Time "Attenberg is . . . a masterful psychoanalyst . . . She doesn't flinch from digging into life's messiness, pressing gently but resolutely into wounds to see what oozes out. Attenberg's medium, as much as the written word, is familial dysfunction. And the Tuchman family is a matryoshka stacking doll of dysfunction. [This is] an emotionally messy novel, but precise in craft. The narrative voice is complex and profound . . . Attenberg writes with care about even the most glancing characters--a random streetcar driver, a Pilates instructor on a hike, a stroke victim sharing Victor's hospital ward--her narrative touches so many souls, it's like a spirit passing through."
-- USA Today "Attenberg explores violence, corruption, infidelity, and betrayal--with a satisfying set of consequences."
-- BBC "Versatile, earthbound, and unforgiving, the novelist returns to the comic blend of messy family drama that made The Middlesteins such a smart bestseller. This time, the madness swirls around the (sort of) grown children of the dying Victor, a tyrannical and very shady real-estate developer."
-- Boris Kachka, Vulture "While the plot of All This Could Be Yours only takes place over a single day--albeit a very, very long day--the stories told in the novel encapsulate lifetimes."
-- Salon "If you feed off of dysfunctional family drama that's not your own, you'll eat this up."
-- Cosmopolitan "All hail Jami Attenberg, the queen of dysfunctional families."
-- Refinery29 "Big Little Lies meets Succession in the scorching heat of the Big Easy--that's All This Could Be Yours, the story of a power-hungry patriarch on his deathbed and a family reckoning with a secret past. Money, power, and family are touched upon through Attenberg's emotional, humorous, and sharply written accounts."
-- Parade "A richly drawn pleasure."
-- People
-- Nylon "A smart, funny, beautifully observed family saga."
-- Southern Living "Juicy drama . . . Attenberg's characters (family members as well as outsiders via clever cameos) are deftly developed, making for a fast but satisfying read."
-- Real Simple "It wouldn't be a Jami Attenberg novel without a difficult family at its center. The New Orleans-set All This Could Be Yours spins secrets and resentments in its portrait of a strong-willed lawyer who returns home to contend with the legacy of her abusive, dying father."
--Entertainment Weekly "All This Could Be Yours . . . is glorious. It's dark, sexy, mordant, and the characters are deeply flawed yet relatable in that 'drag me' way. It's set in New Orleans, and while Jami's writing is sparkling and lucid, the muggy heat of the backdrop lends an air of sultry wooziness that evokes day drinking and other amazing decisions. This book captures the intolerable loneliness and occasional futility of loving your family. All This Could Be Yours makes you want to call your mom, get salty when she doesn't pick up, and then let her call go to voicemail when she rings you back."
-- Mary H. K. Choi, Bustle "We would read anything that Jami Attenberg writes. Anything. All This Could Be Yours is the best family drama you'll read all year--and Attenberg's best novel yet."
-- Hello Giggles "A deep dive into the darker side of family bonds, All This Could Be Yours is another compulsively readable novel by Jami Attenberg. In what feels like a rebuke to late capitalism, Attenberg refuses to find charm or redemption in the ugliness of greed. Her first book set in New Orleans, the novel casts a stark contrast between this family of outsiders and the native residents whose lives intersect with the Tuchmans. This is a parable for our times."
-- Observer "Contemporary family sagas don't get much better than this novel, which should appeal to fans of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections or Jennifer Egan's Manhattan Beach."
-- Library Journal, starred review "Novelist Jami Attenberg writes fascinating, complicated characters, and All This Could Be Yours connects a villainous old man on his deathbed with others you'll instantly care about. Despite the short time span, this story covers a lot of ground . . . A rich account of what folks have done, remembered, and regretted. Attenberg's writing is funny and true, her observations bone-deep and nonjudgmental."
-- Bust "Pointed, raw prose . . . soaked in the boiling intensity of August in the city."
-- Electric Lit, 7 Books Set in New Orleans That Go Beyond Mardi Gras "Weaving together a riotous assortment of threads, Attenberg tenderly mines [the Tuchmans'] family history and massive dysfunction not for clues as to what created the monstrous Victor but for what a monster can create in spite of himself. Her characters--flawed, defensive, overwhelmed, and frequently endearing--fizz off the page. Their inner lives coalesce beautifully into a funny and heart-stirring tribute to the nutty inscrutability of belonging to a family."
-- Booklist, starred review "In this darkly hilarious family drama, an abusive patriarch is on his deathbed in New Orleans, and his daughter is determined to mine her distant mother for secrets."
-- New York Post "If you're a fan of shows like Succession or even Arrested Development, looking at the fallout of a wealthy, toxic man and the family life he built, this novel is sure to thrill you. But really, anyone familiar with the ups and downs of family life will find something to relate to here."
-- She Knows "Dazzling . . . A delectable family saga."
-- Publishers Weekly, starred review "In her first New Orleans novel, Attenberg explores how deeply one person's life can impact a family for generations--and how people break free from the grip of deeply intertwined webs of toxic family history." -- Deep South "The novel takes place in one very long day but encompasses the entirety of lifetimes . . . Prickly and unsentimental, but never quite hopeless, Attenberg, poet laureate of difficult families, captures the relentlessly lonely beauty of being alive. Not a gentle novel but a deeply tender one."
-- Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Jami Attenberg always creates characters that feel so real you can almost touch them, and in All This Could Be Yours, she does it again. With their patriarch on his deathbed, the family of Victor Tuchman gathers to say their goodbyes and figure out why he was the way he was. (And why they are the way they are.) Thoughtful and smart, All This Could Be Yours is a novel that begs to be discussed."
-- PopSugar, Best 2019 Fall Books for Women "Attenberg writes with a deeply human understanding of her characters, and the fact that, when it comes to family, things are rarely well enough to leave alone."
-- Booklist, starred review "Jami Attenberg hasn't written a dull book yet . . . This book gets at some really deep, fundamental truths about family and forgiveness, and sees Attenberg possibly at her strongest yet, with each passing sentence as crisp and urgent as the next. This is another great work by one of our finest novelists."
-- Inside Hook "An ambitious and utterly delectable novel about families and their secrets that opens up, pleasurably, like a set of nesting dolls."
-- Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble "Jami Attenberg's work is so deeply attuned to humans and our imperfect attempts to love each other. All This Could Be Yours is populated by Attenberg's pitch-perfect characters: flawed, recognizable people dealing with big topics--death, family, sex, love--and Attenberg handles it all with an expert touch and a keen sense of what, despite all the sadness and secrets, keeps people connected, striving for moments of beauty and tenderness in a dark world."
-- Emma Cline, author of The Girls "Set against the vivid backdrop of New Orleans, Jami Attenberg's extraordinary new novel, All This Could Be Yours, is a deep dive into fractured family dynamics. In alternating voices, Attenberg expertly weaves together a chorus of love, betrayal, and inheritance, each chapter a prism turned, revealing a new spectrum of secrets. Interspersed are gorgeous excavations into fleeting moments with strangers--the checkout clerks and ferry conductors passing through our lives--connecting this singular family into the larger web of life, where everyone is worthy of understanding and no one is without a soul."
-- Hannah Tinti, author of The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley "Attenberg crafts families with stunning nuance and depth. She pays tribute to unseen New Orleans with a gaze on the powerful and the downtrodden. Her characters are unforgettable, their predicaments are captivating, and their journeys shed light on the inner workings of America."
-- Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of A Kind of Freedom "Jami Attenberg writes with an unflinching and generous spirit that brings to mind Grace Paley. All This Could Be Yours traces the lasting turmoil of a flawed marriage, and is another marvel of intelligence, humor, and soul."
-- Zachary Lazar, author of Vengeance and Sway "No one understands the contradictions of the human heart and how our grace and our failures reverberate through our families better than Jami Attenberg. And no one writes about our grace and failures with humor and compassion better than her either. Also--this book's structure is brilliant."
--Attica Locke, author ofHeaven, My Home "An engrossing story."
-- AARP the Magazine, Favorite Fiction Books for Fall "Attenberg peels back the layers of each character until it feels like you have known this family your whole life."
-- Alma, Favorite Books for Fall
-- New York Times "All This Could Be Yours is an engaging portrait of the unshakable connection of family."
-- Vogue "Complicated families are Attenberg's specialty, and she more than delivers on that premise here."
-- Buzzfeed "Told from multiple perspectives, All This Could Be Yours illustrates the heartbreak, isolation, and chaos that comes from really getting to know your family."
-- Time "Attenberg is . . . a masterful psychoanalyst . . . She doesn't flinch from digging into life's messiness, pressing gently but resolutely into wounds to see what oozes out. Attenberg's medium, as much as the written word, is familial dysfunction. And the Tuchman family is a matryoshka stacking doll of dysfunction. [This is] an emotionally messy novel, but precise in craft. The narrative voice is complex and profound . . . Attenberg writes with care about even the most glancing characters--a random streetcar driver, a Pilates instructor on a hike, a stroke victim sharing Victor's hospital ward--her narrative touches so many souls, it's like a spirit passing through."
-- USA Today "Attenberg explores violence, corruption, infidelity, and betrayal--with a satisfying set of consequences."
-- BBC "Versatile, earthbound, and unforgiving, the novelist returns to the comic blend of messy family drama that made The Middlesteins such a smart bestseller. This time, the madness swirls around the (sort of) grown children of the dying Victor, a tyrannical and very shady real-estate developer."
-- Boris Kachka, Vulture "While the plot of All This Could Be Yours only takes place over a single day--albeit a very, very long day--the stories told in the novel encapsulate lifetimes."
-- Salon "If you feed off of dysfunctional family drama that's not your own, you'll eat this up."
-- Cosmopolitan "All hail Jami Attenberg, the queen of dysfunctional families."
-- Refinery29 "Big Little Lies meets Succession in the scorching heat of the Big Easy--that's All This Could Be Yours, the story of a power-hungry patriarch on his deathbed and a family reckoning with a secret past. Money, power, and family are touched upon through Attenberg's emotional, humorous, and sharply written accounts."
-- Parade "A richly drawn pleasure."
-- People
"[A] master of modern fiction . . . Toggling back and forth through perspectives and time, Attenberg gives each character their own rich history, making even tertiary ones--a Pilates instructor, a CVS clerk, a world-weary coroner--come fantastically alive, sometimes in just a single line. New Orleans, too, is its own protagonist: a place of sticky booze and Spanish moss and endless, swampy heat that also knows its own clichés, inside and out."
-- Entertainment Weekly
-- Nylon "A smart, funny, beautifully observed family saga."
-- Southern Living "Juicy drama . . . Attenberg's characters (family members as well as outsiders via clever cameos) are deftly developed, making for a fast but satisfying read."
-- Real Simple "It wouldn't be a Jami Attenberg novel without a difficult family at its center. The New Orleans-set All This Could Be Yours spins secrets and resentments in its portrait of a strong-willed lawyer who returns home to contend with the legacy of her abusive, dying father."
--Entertainment Weekly "All This Could Be Yours . . . is glorious. It's dark, sexy, mordant, and the characters are deeply flawed yet relatable in that 'drag me' way. It's set in New Orleans, and while Jami's writing is sparkling and lucid, the muggy heat of the backdrop lends an air of sultry wooziness that evokes day drinking and other amazing decisions. This book captures the intolerable loneliness and occasional futility of loving your family. All This Could Be Yours makes you want to call your mom, get salty when she doesn't pick up, and then let her call go to voicemail when she rings you back."
-- Mary H. K. Choi, Bustle "We would read anything that Jami Attenberg writes. Anything. All This Could Be Yours is the best family drama you'll read all year--and Attenberg's best novel yet."
-- Hello Giggles "A deep dive into the darker side of family bonds, All This Could Be Yours is another compulsively readable novel by Jami Attenberg. In what feels like a rebuke to late capitalism, Attenberg refuses to find charm or redemption in the ugliness of greed. Her first book set in New Orleans, the novel casts a stark contrast between this family of outsiders and the native residents whose lives intersect with the Tuchmans. This is a parable for our times."
-- Observer "Contemporary family sagas don't get much better than this novel, which should appeal to fans of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections or Jennifer Egan's Manhattan Beach."
-- Library Journal, starred review "Novelist Jami Attenberg writes fascinating, complicated characters, and All This Could Be Yours connects a villainous old man on his deathbed with others you'll instantly care about. Despite the short time span, this story covers a lot of ground . . . A rich account of what folks have done, remembered, and regretted. Attenberg's writing is funny and true, her observations bone-deep and nonjudgmental."
-- Bust "Pointed, raw prose . . . soaked in the boiling intensity of August in the city."
-- Electric Lit, 7 Books Set in New Orleans That Go Beyond Mardi Gras "Weaving together a riotous assortment of threads, Attenberg tenderly mines [the Tuchmans'] family history and massive dysfunction not for clues as to what created the monstrous Victor but for what a monster can create in spite of himself. Her characters--flawed, defensive, overwhelmed, and frequently endearing--fizz off the page. Their inner lives coalesce beautifully into a funny and heart-stirring tribute to the nutty inscrutability of belonging to a family."
-- Booklist, starred review "In this darkly hilarious family drama, an abusive patriarch is on his deathbed in New Orleans, and his daughter is determined to mine her distant mother for secrets."
-- New York Post "If you're a fan of shows like Succession or even Arrested Development, looking at the fallout of a wealthy, toxic man and the family life he built, this novel is sure to thrill you. But really, anyone familiar with the ups and downs of family life will find something to relate to here."
-- She Knows "Dazzling . . . A delectable family saga."
-- Publishers Weekly, starred review "In her first New Orleans novel, Attenberg explores how deeply one person's life can impact a family for generations--and how people break free from the grip of deeply intertwined webs of toxic family history." -- Deep South "The novel takes place in one very long day but encompasses the entirety of lifetimes . . . Prickly and unsentimental, but never quite hopeless, Attenberg, poet laureate of difficult families, captures the relentlessly lonely beauty of being alive. Not a gentle novel but a deeply tender one."
-- Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Jami Attenberg always creates characters that feel so real you can almost touch them, and in All This Could Be Yours, she does it again. With their patriarch on his deathbed, the family of Victor Tuchman gathers to say their goodbyes and figure out why he was the way he was. (And why they are the way they are.) Thoughtful and smart, All This Could Be Yours is a novel that begs to be discussed."
-- PopSugar, Best 2019 Fall Books for Women "Attenberg writes with a deeply human understanding of her characters, and the fact that, when it comes to family, things are rarely well enough to leave alone."
-- Booklist, starred review "Jami Attenberg hasn't written a dull book yet . . . This book gets at some really deep, fundamental truths about family and forgiveness, and sees Attenberg possibly at her strongest yet, with each passing sentence as crisp and urgent as the next. This is another great work by one of our finest novelists."
-- Inside Hook "An ambitious and utterly delectable novel about families and their secrets that opens up, pleasurably, like a set of nesting dolls."
-- Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble "Jami Attenberg's work is so deeply attuned to humans and our imperfect attempts to love each other. All This Could Be Yours is populated by Attenberg's pitch-perfect characters: flawed, recognizable people dealing with big topics--death, family, sex, love--and Attenberg handles it all with an expert touch and a keen sense of what, despite all the sadness and secrets, keeps people connected, striving for moments of beauty and tenderness in a dark world."
-- Emma Cline, author of The Girls "Set against the vivid backdrop of New Orleans, Jami Attenberg's extraordinary new novel, All This Could Be Yours, is a deep dive into fractured family dynamics. In alternating voices, Attenberg expertly weaves together a chorus of love, betrayal, and inheritance, each chapter a prism turned, revealing a new spectrum of secrets. Interspersed are gorgeous excavations into fleeting moments with strangers--the checkout clerks and ferry conductors passing through our lives--connecting this singular family into the larger web of life, where everyone is worthy of understanding and no one is without a soul."
-- Hannah Tinti, author of The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley "Attenberg crafts families with stunning nuance and depth. She pays tribute to unseen New Orleans with a gaze on the powerful and the downtrodden. Her characters are unforgettable, their predicaments are captivating, and their journeys shed light on the inner workings of America."
-- Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of A Kind of Freedom "Jami Attenberg writes with an unflinching and generous spirit that brings to mind Grace Paley. All This Could Be Yours traces the lasting turmoil of a flawed marriage, and is another marvel of intelligence, humor, and soul."
-- Zachary Lazar, author of Vengeance and Sway "No one understands the contradictions of the human heart and how our grace and our failures reverberate through our families better than Jami Attenberg. And no one writes about our grace and failures with humor and compassion better than her either. Also--this book's structure is brilliant."
--Attica Locke, author ofHeaven, My Home "An engrossing story."
-- AARP the Magazine, Favorite Fiction Books for Fall "Attenberg peels back the layers of each character until it feels like you have known this family your whole life."
-- Alma, Favorite Books for Fall
