Pretend We Are Lovely
Noley Reid
(Author)
Description
It's the summer of 1982 in Blacksburg, Virginia--seven years after the suspicious death of a son and sibling--and the Sobel family is hungry.Francie dresses in tennis skirts and ankle socks and weighs her grams of allotted carrots and iceberg lettuce. Her semi-estranged husband Tate prefers a packed fridge and hidden doughnuts. Daughters Enid, ten, and Vivvy, almost thirteen, are subtler versions of their parents, measuring their summer vacation by meals had or meals skipped. But at summer's end, secrets both old and new emerge and Francie disappears, leaving the family teetering on the brink.
Told from alternating points of view by the four living Sobels, Pretend We Are Lovely is a sharp and darkly funny story of forgiveness, family secrets, and the losses we inherit. At its core is the ever-complicated and deeply-devoted bond of sisterhood as the girls, left mostly to their own devices, must navigate their way through middle school, find comfort in each other, and learn the difference between food and nourishment.
Product Details
Price
$15.95
$14.83
Publisher
Tin House Books
Publish Date
July 18, 2017
Pages
284
Dimensions
5.5 X 1.0 X 8.4 inches | 0.85 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781941040669
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
Noley Reid is the author of the novels Pretend We Are Lovely and In the Breeze of Passing Things and the short story collection So There! Her stories and essays have appeared in the Southern Review, Rumpus, Lily, Arts & Letters, Meridian, Pithead Chapel, Bustle, Confrontation, and Los Angeles Review of Books. Reid holds an MFA from George Mason University, and she taught creative writing for eighteen years in colleges, universities, and community centers. She lives in southwest Indiana with her two best boys, a rabbit, and two dogs, the original origami dogs.
Reviews
Noley Reid's memorable novel is funny and heartbreaking in equal measure.--Mark Childress, author of CRAZY IN ALABAMA
In magnetic prose, Reid offers up a scrumptious novel about the things we use to save our fractured relationships.--Oprah Magazine
[A] family must navigate the secret currents of guilt, obsession, loss, and--most dangerous of all--hope in this pitch-perfect examination of two Southern seasons in 1982. . . . In prose that ambulates between stark, hallucinatory, fuddled, and chewy according to the guiding character's point of view, Reid masterfully denies her novel the impulse to solve its characters' problems.--Kirkus, Starred Review
Reid transforms the story of a mentally ill mother setting off the implosion of a tight-knit nuclear family into a sharp-edged portrait of the ways in which each member of the family is shaped by the others, with no villains, only victims. . . . A tense, vivid, and sharp novel that captures the complex relationships between the Sobel family members, particularly between sisters Vivvy and Enid.--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
In bright-as-a-penny writing, first novelist Reid delivers the absorbing story of the Sobel family of 1980s Blacksburg, VA. . . . A forthright study of a family seeking hope and finding something else, with pitch-perfect detail.--Library Journal
Reid writes potently of our most intimate blind spots: the tangles of love and bodies, nourishment and punishment, grief and comfort. In her agile hands the complexity of family is dramatically and vitally revealed.--Samantha Hunt, author of THE DARK DARK
[A] book fat with love, full of tender absurdity and absurd tenderness, a story that artfully depicts the first aches and thrills of adolescence while also unmasking the unslakable thirst that slips with us into adulthood.--Alethea Black, author of I KNEW YOU'D BE LOVELY
[A] novel that will make you laugh and also break your heart in all the right ways . . . Told with wit and charm and compassion, this novel resonates with all that we hunger to have and all that feeds us.--Lee Martin, author of THE BRIGHT FOREVER
Hunger shapes the intertwined narratives of Noley Reid's searing and clear-eyed novel, wherein no one escapes unscathed the emotional starvation of a family.--Leslie Daniels, author of CLEANING NABOKOV'S HOUSE
Poignant and unforgettable.--Largehearted Boy
Pretend We Are Lovely is an outstanding, unflinching novel about starvation and indulgence, family and self. Noley Reid writes profound, raw characters with guts and grace. This is one of the most moving novels I've ever read.--Sharma Shields, author of THE SASQUATCH HUNTER'S ALMANAC
In magnetic prose, Reid offers up a scrumptious novel about the things we use to save our fractured relationships.--Oprah Magazine
[A] family must navigate the secret currents of guilt, obsession, loss, and--most dangerous of all--hope in this pitch-perfect examination of two Southern seasons in 1982. . . . In prose that ambulates between stark, hallucinatory, fuddled, and chewy according to the guiding character's point of view, Reid masterfully denies her novel the impulse to solve its characters' problems.--Kirkus, Starred Review
Reid transforms the story of a mentally ill mother setting off the implosion of a tight-knit nuclear family into a sharp-edged portrait of the ways in which each member of the family is shaped by the others, with no villains, only victims. . . . A tense, vivid, and sharp novel that captures the complex relationships between the Sobel family members, particularly between sisters Vivvy and Enid.--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
In bright-as-a-penny writing, first novelist Reid delivers the absorbing story of the Sobel family of 1980s Blacksburg, VA. . . . A forthright study of a family seeking hope and finding something else, with pitch-perfect detail.--Library Journal
Reid writes potently of our most intimate blind spots: the tangles of love and bodies, nourishment and punishment, grief and comfort. In her agile hands the complexity of family is dramatically and vitally revealed.--Samantha Hunt, author of THE DARK DARK
[A] book fat with love, full of tender absurdity and absurd tenderness, a story that artfully depicts the first aches and thrills of adolescence while also unmasking the unslakable thirst that slips with us into adulthood.--Alethea Black, author of I KNEW YOU'D BE LOVELY
[A] novel that will make you laugh and also break your heart in all the right ways . . . Told with wit and charm and compassion, this novel resonates with all that we hunger to have and all that feeds us.--Lee Martin, author of THE BRIGHT FOREVER
Hunger shapes the intertwined narratives of Noley Reid's searing and clear-eyed novel, wherein no one escapes unscathed the emotional starvation of a family.--Leslie Daniels, author of CLEANING NABOKOV'S HOUSE
Poignant and unforgettable.--Largehearted Boy
Pretend We Are Lovely is an outstanding, unflinching novel about starvation and indulgence, family and self. Noley Reid writes profound, raw characters with guts and grace. This is one of the most moving novels I've ever read.--Sharma Shields, author of THE SASQUATCH HUNTER'S ALMANAC
