Publishers Weekly
07/22/2024
Attenberg (The Middlesteins) chronicles the lives of the dysfunctional Cohen family over four decades in her nuanced latest. The opening scene, set in 1971 Chicago during a game of Scrabble, delineates their fraught dynamics. Frieda, the mother, sneaks away to take shots of Slivovitz, then berates her 16-year-old daughter, Nancy, for playing a three-letter word (“That’s all you have to show me”?). Her husband, Rudy, a gay Holocaust survivor and loving father to Nancy and their brainiac younger daughter, Shelly, wonders if the couple made the right decision to be together. After Rudy dies the next year from heart failure, Frieda grows more critical of the girls, prompting Nancy a few years later to move in with her college boyfriend, Robby, with whom she’s unexpectedly pregnant, and Shelly to accept a scholarship to UC Berkeley. In the late 1980s and ’90s, Nancy and Robby’s daughter, Jess, becomes enamored with Shelly, an innovator in cell phone technology, while Frieda lives in Florida and works in elder care. Attenberg brings the disparate threads together as Frieda falls ill in the 2000s and the sisters must decide whether they’ll care for her. 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 portait of a distinctly unhappy family. Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown Ltd. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
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
“The vicissitudes of [Attenberg’s] characters are undeniably absorbing.” — Kirkus Reviews
"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)
"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
“Attenberg’s nuanced latest . . . . 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
