All New People

by Anne Lamott Narrated by Karissa Vacker

Overview

With generosity, humor, and pathos, Anne Lamott takes on the barrage of dislocating changes that shook the '60s.

Leading us through the wake of these changes is Nanny Goodman, a girl living in Marin County, California. A half-adult child among often childish adults, Nanny grows up with two spectacularly odd parents: a writer father and a mother who is a constant source of material. As she moves into her adolescence, so, it seems, does America. While grappling with her own coming of age, Nanny witnesses an entire culture's descent into drugs, the mass exodus of fathers from her town, and rapid real estate and technological developments that foreshadow a drastically different future.

In All New People, Anne Lamott works a special magic, transforming failure into forgiveness and illuminating the power of love to redeem us.

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal

In this child's-eye view of the fear and pain of growing up, Lamott shows in vivid word pictures that the child is parent of the adult. Nan Goodman, hurting after a failed marriage and her father's death, goes back to the town of her childhood. As skinny little Nanny, aged five to 12, she either adored or was ashamed of her leftist parents, her writer father who never made enough money for comfort and her devoutly Christian mother who was his inspiration. Wrenching memories of family disasters, and especially the cruel snubs and abject solitude of childhood, are dissipated by love and laughter, and the adult Nan makes peace with her past. In spare prose Lamott ( Rosie , LJ 10/15/83) creates endearing, quirky characters in scenes memorable for being so skillfully drawn and universally appealing. A heart-warmer, to be savored.-- Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.

The New Yorker

"Anne Lamott is a cause for celebrations. [Her] real genius lies in capturing the ineffable, describing not perfect moments, but imperfect ones...perfectly. She is nothing short of miraculous."

Amy Tan

"Anne Lamott is the two-way mirror of our hopes, insecurities, and cheating hearts, an astute observer of human nature. She knows that what we don't know can hurt us. In true Lamott fashion, life doesn't stay neatly within boundaries, the best team doesn't always win, and only the voyeur knows who you really are. Fathers die, mothers drink, but there's also this: Love, redemption, and the certainty that life goes on."

Amy Hempel

"Equal parts humor, courage, and self-forgiveness. It's this last quality, amplified to absolve an entire family, that makes the book larger than so many family chronicles...A wonderful novel."

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172169281
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	01/22/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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