Old Flame

by Molly Prentiss

Overview

This “enthralling” (The New York Times Book Review) and “introspective, energetic novel” (Booklist) explores what it means to be a woman in her many forms—daughter, friend, partner, lover, and mother—from the acclaimed author of Tuesday Nights in 1980.

Emily writes for women’s catalogs for a living, but she’d rather be writing books. She has a handsome photographer boyfriend, but she actively wonders how and when they will eventually hurt each other. Her best work friend was abruptly laid off. When her world is further upended by an unplanned pregnancy, Emily is forced to make tough decisions that will change her life forever.

What will she sacrifice from her old life to make room for a new one? What fires will she be forced to extinguish, and which will keep burning? Old Flame is an essential, “warmhearted, and luminous page-turner about desire, time, love, parenthood, work, and art in women’s lives” (Sophie McManus, author of The Unfortunates).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501121593
Publisher:	Gallery/Scout Press
Publication date:	04/09/2024
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	605,582
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Molly Prentiss is the author of Old Flame and Tuesday Nights in 1980, which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, and shortlisted for the Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine in France. Her writing has been translated into multiple languages. She lives in Red Hook, New York, with her husband and daughter. You can find her at Molly-Prentiss.com or on Instagram @MollyPrentiss.

Editorial Reviews

02/13/2023

Prentiss (Tuesday Nights in 1980) chronicles the life and loves of a New York City copywriter in her appealing latest. Emily, a 20-something New Yorker, seems to have it all: a cute photographer boyfriend named Wes, a writing job for a prominent retailer, and a stalwart work bestie named Megan. However, Emily is getting tired of writing cutesy catalog copy and dreams of becoming a writer like her biological mother who had given her up for adoption. Megan, meanwhile, ends an affair with their boss and gets fired, leaving Emily to flounder. When Emily is invited to a wedding in Italy and Wes can’t make it, she takes Megan. There, Emily learns she’s unexpectedly pregnant, and when Megan finds an unflattering description of herself in Emily’s diary, they have a friendship-ending fight. Soon, Emily’s not sure whom she can count on or what to do about her pregnancy. Prentiss has a gift for crafting complex characters, and her insight on the mixed emotions around adoption and unexpected pregnancy ring true throughout. With plenty of charm and drama, Prentiss keeps readers turning the pages. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Enthralling . . . [T]here are echoes of Elena Ferrante . . . ‘Old Flame’ is that rare novel whose author – as well as her protagonist – gains wisdom and authority as the story unfolds, never failing to remind us that while loss and grief are inescapable, joy and fulfillment are possible.” —The New York Times Book Review

“[A] confident, bittersweet new novel . . . As much as this work is about friendships, relationships and motherhood, it is also a book about writing . . . Prentiss captures well the excitement of collaboration and how it engenders creativity.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Prentiss writes with astounding electric, brutal precision about many topics—motherhood, Italy, the pursuit of art, female friendship and, the big one of course, love. This [book] is really good . . . Become the star of your book club for recommending this remarkable novel.” —The Mountains

“Prentiss has a gift for crafting complex characters, and her insight on the mixed emotions around adoption and unexpected pregnancy ring true throughout. With plenty of charm and drama, Prentiss keeps readers turning the pages.”—Publishers Weekly

“[An] introspective, energetic novel . . . Prentiss’ writing is lively and dynamic . . . [T]he intimate distress, yearning, grief, and laughter she evokes makes the novel seem like her protagonist's memoir, resulting in a tale that grants readers a sense of connection, hope, and comfort.”—Booklist

“[W]restles with the binaries of art versus motherhood, chosen family versus found family, and social expectation versus authenticity . . . Prentiss’ prose is energetic and inventive.”—Kirkus Reviews

“A stylish and sharp look at one woman’s attempt to balance the competing interests of her work and life. A balm for anyone overwhelmed with contradictory desires.” – Kiley Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Such a Fun Age

“Molly Prentiss is a deeply empathic noticer who never fails to articulate the brutal, beautiful unseen elements of life. The kind of writing that elicits that involuntary kind of moan of recognition.”—Marie-Helene Bertino, author of 2am at the Cat's Pajamas and Parakeet

"Old Flame is amazing—a warmhearted and luminous page-turner about desire, time, love, parenthood, work, and art in women’s lives. What a woman invents of herself, what the world demands she be, and the stories she tells to find her many selves across a lifetime are considered with both the scorching verve of Elena Ferrante and the frank humor of Maria Semple. This unforgettable book is a love letter to love itself, to how hard and wonderful life is, and to finding home, in all its thrilling, changing forms, ever mysterious and known." —Sophie McManus, author of The Unfortunates

"Old Flame asks all the important questions: What if women are people? What if relinquishment of the Self is a good thing? How does a person make good on the past while charting a future? What does it mean to no longer be young?" —Elisa Albert, author of Human Blues

From the Publisher

2023-02-08
An adopted woman wrestles with the binaries of art versus motherhood, chosen family versus found family, and social expectation versus authenticity.

On the ninth floor of a department store building on 34th street in Manhattan, Emily writes. It’s not the kind of writing she wishes she could make a living at—novels, stories, literary stuff. Rather, it’s taglines and ad copy to ensure a woman feels lacking enough in glamour to offer up a “share of her wallet” (as the CEO puts it) to buy a cashmere sweater or Chanel blouse. Emily has a photographer boyfriend, Wes, and a work BFF, Megan, whose artistic impulses are also subverted by toiling at the store. Emily's life is OK, but cracks quickly begin to show: Megan has an affair with the boss and is fired; Wes grows distant. When Emily is invited to a wedding in Italy, giving her the opportunity to revisit an area where she'd lived as a student with an alluring art historian and her young daughters, she jumps at the chance to leave her troubles behind, taking Megan along with her. When a series of life-altering events happen in Italy, Emily must confront her motherless and often rudderless past, her uncertain present, and a future in which she is pulled in a million directions so familiar to women: worker, partner, mother, friend, and maker. Prentiss’ prose is energetic and inventive, and Emily’s restless imagination can make for fun interludes, as when she imagines Megan as an angel in a painting giving her advice. However, for much of the book, Prentiss tries to present Emily as a person still figuring out who she is and who she wants to become, and the result is that Emily sometimes feels more a symbolic repository of the contemporary New York woman than a fully formed character.

A blurry protagonist deals with some sharply realistic life demands.

Kirkus Reviews