The History of Great Things: A Novel

by Elizabeth Crane

Overview

A witty and irresistible story of a mother and daughter regarding each other through the looking glass of time, grief, and forgiveness.

In two beautifully counterpoised narratives, two women—mother and daughter—try to make sense of their own lives by revisiting what they know about each other. The History of Great Things tells the entwined stories of Lois, a daughter of the Depression Midwest who came to New York to transform herself into an opera star, and her daughter, Elizabeth, an aspiring writer who came of age in the 1970s and ’80s in the forbidding shadow of her often-absent, always larger-than-life mother. In a tour de force of storytelling and human empathy, Elizabeth chronicles the events of her mother’s life, and in turn Lois recounts her daughter’s story—pulling back the curtain on lifelong secrets, challenging and interrupting each other, defending their own behavior, brandishing or swallowing their pride, and, ultimately, coming to understand each other in a way that feels both extraordinary and universal.

The History of Great Things is a novel about a mother and daughter who are intimately connected and not connected enough; it will make readers laugh and cry and wonder how we become the adults we always knew we should—even if we’re not always adults our parents understand.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062412683
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	04/05/2016
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	613,739
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Elizabeth Crane is the author of the novel We Only Know So Much and three collections of short stories. Her stories have been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts. She is a recipient of the Chicago Public Library 21st Century Award, and her work has been adapted for the stage by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. A feature film adaptation of We Only Know So Much will be released in 2016.

Editorial Reviews

The novel flows smoothly, and readers game for offbeat narrative approaches will be well rewarded. . . . So much like the relationship they’re borne of, Crane’s deeply realized mother-daughter inventions are therapeutic and ruthless, heartfelt and crushing. A lovely exercise in the wild, soothing wonders of imagination.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Poignant and hilarious...Crane writes about the relationship between a deceased mother and her daughter as they tell each other’s stories to understand each other.” — Michele Filgate, Los Angeles Times

“Imagine sitting at a leisurely dinner with two intelligent women, a mother and daughter....The format may be experimental, but the emotions the book will stir in readers are moving and heartbreakingly familiar.” — Library Journal

“Elizabeth Crane’s latest novel, The History of Great Things, is a poignant dual narrative featuring a mother and daughter whose disparate paths ultimately prevent them from ever truly understanding each other. . . . Alternating between laugh-out-loud humor and heart-rending melancholy, Crane gives us a mother and daughter who never quite grasp each other’s life stories, but who find truth through unconditional love.” — Bookpage

“Ultimately, The History of Great Things is a story of perception, one well worth reading. It serves as a reminder that what truly matters to each of us is not what actually happens, but how we remember it.” — The Rumpus.com

“Cowritten, in a sense, by a daughter and her absent mother (who speaks from beyond the grave), this is an important work, fearless in both structure and vision, with Crane’s razor-edge fusion of intelligence, humor, and emotion informing every chapter. Get ready, world: this one’s going to be huge.” — Jamie Quatro, author of I Want to Show You More

“I cannot remember the last time I simultaneously cried and laughed as hard as I did while reading Elizabeth Crane’s glorious, tender knockout of a novel, The History of Great Things. Wait, yes I can. It was the last time I spoke to my mom about life.” — Amber Tamblyn, author of Dark Sparkler

“Like everything Elizabeth Crane writes, The History of Great Things is wonderful fun to read-smart, insightful, and witty-but it will break your heart, too. It stares down the poignant question so many daughters want to ask: How well did my mother really know me?” — Pamela Erens, author of Eleven Hours and The Virgins

From the Publisher

Poignant and hilarious...Crane writes about the relationship between a deceased mother and her daughter as they tell each other’s stories to understand each other.

Michele Filgate

Elizabeth Crane’s latest novel, The History of Great Things, is a poignant dual narrative featuring a mother and daughter whose disparate paths ultimately prevent them from ever truly understanding each other. . . . Alternating between laugh-out-loud humor and heart-rending melancholy, Crane gives us a mother and daughter who never quite grasp each other’s life stories, but who find truth through unconditional love.

Bookpage

Ultimately, The History of Great Things is a story of perception, one well worth reading. It serves as a reminder that what truly matters to each of us is not what actually happens, but how we remember it.

The Rumpus.com

Like everything Elizabeth Crane writes, The History of Great Things is wonderful fun to read-smart, insightful, and witty-but it will break your heart, too. It stares down the poignant question so many daughters want to ask: How well did my mother really know me?

Pamela Erens

I cannot remember the last time I simultaneously cried and laughed as hard as I did while reading Elizabeth Crane’s glorious, tender knockout of a novel, The History of Great Things. Wait, yes I can. It was the last time I spoke to my mom about life.

Amber Tamblyn

Cowritten, in a sense, by a daughter and her absent mother (who speaks from beyond the grave), this is an important work, fearless in both structure and vision, with Crane’s razor-edge fusion of intelligence, humor, and emotion informing every chapter. Get ready, world: this one’s going to be huge.

Jamie Quatro

The novel flows smoothly, and readers game for offbeat narrative approaches will be well rewarded. . . . So much like the relationship they’re borne of, Crane’s deeply realized mother-daughter inventions are therapeutic and ruthless, heartfelt and crushing. A lovely exercise in the wild, soothing wonders of imagination.

Booklist (starred review)

03/15/2016
Imagine sitting at a leisurely dinner with two intelligent women, a mother and daughter. They tell you the story of their lives, but with a twist: Mom will relate her daughter's story, and daughter will describe her mother's. The ensuing conversation is filled with stops and starts, conjectures, interruptions, and contradictions. Essentially, this discussion is one that Crane, short story writer (When the Messenger Is Hot; All This Heavenly Glory) and novelist (We Only Know So Much), has committed to paper for readers. Mom Lois was a world-renowned opera star and daughter Betsy took her time to realize her eventual goal of becoming a writer. Along the way, each woman expresses regrets, defends or affirms her decisions, and ultimately proves that for all their differences and miscommunication, these two understand each other better than they think. VERDICT The format may be experimental, but the emotions the book will stir in readers are moving and heartbreakingly familiar.—Amy Watts, Univ. of Georgia Lib., Athens

Library Journal

2016-01-18
In a series of autobiographically inspired vignettes, a novelist reimagines her mother's life and revisits her own. Most chapters of Crane's fifth book (When The Messenger Is Hot, 2012, etc.) include sidebars in which narrator Betsy Crane (the author's name) and her mom, opera singer Lois Crane (also real), debate the finer points of the project they have undertaken: telling the story of each other's lives as best they can. "I think we should have more scenes together," says Lois. "I've written some short stories about us before. I also might write a memoir someday. I didn't want to overlap too much," counters Betsy. "Some people might think this is a memoir," her mother points out. While it's definitely a novel, since both the real Lois Crane and the mother in the book are dead, the story bears a complicated relationship to nonfictional truth. Sometimes the two narrators seem to adhere closely to the facts, as in the first chapter, "Binghamton, 1961," in which Lois tells the story of her daughter's birth. Sometimes there are embellishments, filling in the blanks of the things mothers and daughter don't know about each other, as in "To New Friends," where Lois tells the story of how Betsy lost her virginity, or "The Rest of Your Life," where Lois tells how Betsy got sober in AA, or several chapters called "Lois Dies," where Lois tries to imagine her daughter's life after she disappears from it. Sometimes the stories contain significant fantasy elements, as in "Betsy's Wedding #2," in which Betsy imagines Lois returned from the dead as one of the guests at a wedding she did not live to see, causing bitterness among the guests whose dead parents did not similarly reincarnate. In a section called "In Which We Go To Parsons Because It's Not A Memoir," the two are sisters, trying unsuccessfully to become clothing designers. In the commentary for this chapter, her mother says, "I don't understand, why, Betsy, if you're making all this up, it all has to be so hard." Her mother is right: one wishes this endearing stylist, reminiscent of Elizabeth Gilbert, would have done it the easy way. A memoir would have been just fine.

Kirkus Reviews