This is Where We Live: A Novel

by Janelle Brown Narrated by Erik Davies, Phoebe Zimmermann

Overview

This Is Where We Live tells the story of Claudia and Jeremy, a young married couple (she's an aspiring filmmaker, he's an indie musician) who are on the verge of making it. Her first film was a sensation at Sundance and is about to have its theatrical release, he's assembled a new band and is a few songs shy of an album. They've recently purchased their first home-an adorable mid-century bungalow with a breathtaking view of the city of Los Angeles-with the magical assistance of an adjustable-rate mortgage. But a series of seismic events-the tanking of Claudia's film, the return of Jeremy's ex-girlfriend, and the staggering adjustment of their monthly mortgage payments-deal a crushing blow to their dreams of the bohemian life and their professional aspirations and make them question their values and their shared vision of the future.

This Is Where We Live is a novel about the crucible of this economic moment-the way these times play with our hopes, compel us to reckon with our ambition, test our capacity for reinvention, and ask us to question the very things we love.

Editorial Reviews

DECEMBER 2010 - AudioFile

Erik Davies and Phoebe Zimmermann narrate alternate chapters of this novel, which delivers very different perspectives of a marriage on shaky ground. Both narrators do a remarkable job conveying the couple’s interior lives. Zimmermann portrays Claudia, a 30-something filmmaker, as earnest and sincere, thoughtfully working her way through the tsunami of bad luck and worse decisions that threaten to destroy her marriage and her life. Davies plays her husband, Jeremy, with the perfect mixture of self-pity and petulance. Jeremy has skated through life on his good looks and charm, believing all the women who have told him how special he is. The narrators hold our attention by how well they inhabit the emotions of these characters. D.G. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

Married 30-something artists Claudia and Jeremy Munger are the unlucky anchors of Brown's shaky sophomore novel, an of-the-moment time capsule in the mold of her well-received All We Ever Wanted Was Everything. Claudia is a filmmaker whose first feature is about to be released; Jeremy is a musician on the brink of mainstream success; together they are living in boho splendor in a newly purchased L.A. bungalow. But when Claudia's film bombs, Jeremy's band breaks up, their adjustable rate mortgage balloons, and Jeremy's famous painter ex-girlfriend, Aoki, comes back on the scene, the Mungers' sense of themselves is harshly tested. The gauntlets the Mungers face verge on Kafkaesque, yet the novel proceeds with painful earnestness. Particularly detracting are the one-note supporting characters: Jeremy and Claudia's parents, an annoying roommate, the corpulent potential producer of Claudia's next film. Aoki, meanwhile, plays a pivotal role but is burdened with a heavy load of temperamental artist clichés. There are lovely small moments—Claudia's awkward run-in with a former student, for instance—that give hope that the undeniably talented author will find her footing again after this flawed effort. (June)

Library Journal

Brown's follow-up to her biting debut, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, is another addictive read. Brown takes us into the lives of Claudia and Jeremy Munger. They're California-cool: she's got a hot new indie film coming out, and he's on the cusp of finishing a fresh album that music biz executives have high hopes for. Young marrieds, they just purchased an adorable but ridiculously priced cottage in the California hills. Then the real estate market plummets, Claudia's film tanks, and Jeremy's album can't seem to creep to the finish line. No money is coming in at all, and soon their house moves into foreclosure. So the groovy artistic lifestyle fully tilts—Claudia gets a job teaching film at a snooty private school and tries to push Jeremy into a "real job." Then when Jeremy's famous and beautiful artist ex shows up, the Mungers' already stressed marriage is truly tested. VERDICT This telling look at how the current economic crisis affects one family shows that Brown is no one-hit wonder. The writing is crisp and fast, and while this book lacks the dark humor of her first novel, it's still a great contemporary read. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/10; library marketing; ebook ISBN 978-0-679-60384-9; unabridged audio CD ISBN 978-0-307-73620-6.]—Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC

DECEMBER 2010 - AudioFile

Erik Davies and Phoebe Zimmermann narrate alternate chapters of this novel, which delivers very different perspectives of a marriage on shaky ground. Both narrators do a remarkable job conveying the couple’s interior lives. Zimmermann portrays Claudia, a 30-something filmmaker, as earnest and sincere, thoughtfully working her way through the tsunami of bad luck and worse decisions that threaten to destroy her marriage and her life. Davies plays her husband, Jeremy, with the perfect mixture of self-pity and petulance. Jeremy has skated through life on his good looks and charm, believing all the women who have told him how special he is. The narrators hold our attention by how well they inhabit the emotions of these characters. D.G. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

From the opening scene in which an earthquake shakes Los Angeles, Brown's tart second novel (All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, 2008), about a pair of hip Californians facing financial and marital collapse, couldn't be more timely. Rising filmmaker Claudia and indie rock star Jeremy married and bought their 1,300-square-foot bungalow for $600,000 during the height of the housing bubble. With a big movie contract pending for Claudia and an album deal in the works for Jeremy, the couple plans to be out from under the increasingly steep interest-only mortgage payments soon. Unfortunately, after a film Claudia's written and directed tanks at the box office, her new contract dries up while Jeremy's band dissolves before finishing an album. Moreover, Jeremy has not paid the mortgage for several months and now the bank won't renegotiate the loan. As the possibility of losing the house looms, cracks appear in the marriage. Responsible, hardworking Claudia's more conventional side emerges; desperate to keep the house, she takes a job teaching film at a private high school. Jeremy, who works fitfully as a T-shirt designer and takes pride in his bohemianism, which borders on irresponsibility, was already chafing at the demands of the house when the mortgage crisis arose. Before he met Claudia, he had been a music/art world darling in New York, the lover and muse of a now world-famous artist named Aoki. One of her paintings of him hangs in the bungalow, and he refuses Claudia's request to sell it despite the needed cash it would bring. Instead they take in a tenant who sets the house on fire. By then Aoki, emotionally unstable but still alluring, has shown up to tempt Jeremy away from his marriage. A desperate Claudia is engaging in her own moral capitulation-falsifying a student's grades to get a lucrative film deal from the girl's father. The phony happy ending mars what is for the most part a cringingly funny satire of love and money among the artsy class. Author tour to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Ore. Agent: Susan Golomb/Susan Golomb Literary Agency

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171845384
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	06/15/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged

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