I’m interested in characters and stories that reveal the light and darkness inside and between people. For me, the best stories are ones that feature screwed-up characters trying their best to put one step in front of the other, sometimes in a misguided way that costs those most dear to them. This kind of dynamic is most fraught in the family unit. Family members stunt and cultivate each other in unexpected and fascinating ways. So I’m drawn to reading about dysfunctional families, as well as writing about them as I have in my novels, The Promise of Pierson Orchard (2017) and Stone Creek (out in August 2024).
This story takes place in the orderly, progressive suburban town of Shaker Heights. The lives of two families – the “perfect” Richardson family and an enigmatic, artistic mother and her daughter – interweave and are changed forever. The novel explores the layered complexities of power, the conformist’s vs. artist’s life, and motherhood.
"Witty, wise, and tender. It's a marvel." -Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train and A Slow Fire Burning
"To say I love this book is an understatement. It's a deep psychological mystery about the power of motherhood, the intensity of teenage love, and the danger of perfection. It moved me to tears." -Reese Witherspoon
From the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You and Our Missing Hearts comes a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their…
These twenty-two, well-crafted flash fiction stories illuminate a wide array of family situations and humanity by exploring both mundane and extraordinary moments. This collection manages to be funny, quirky, and poignant, while examining the foibles of family life and relationships with a particular focus on the roles of women and girls.
Twenty-two (very) short stories from Tori Bond create what Kathy Fish calls a "a collection of tightly woven, deliciously wrought stories" that, as Amy L. Clark writes, "allow Bond’s own words to soar like crows, or like chickens, and sometimes, like hope."
Crossing is a vividly human re-imagining of the love, sacrifices, and accomplishments that two Chinese brothers - American Immigrants - experience as they travel to California to build the Transcontinental Railroad.
I’ve heard people say that Jonathan Franzen is the master of dysfunctional families. In this novel, a troubled family of five gathers for one last Christmas together. There’s a rift between parents and children (now grown), partly because the parents judge the children in ways that are steeped in tradition and a culture of days gone by and partly because the children dismiss or override their aging parents. I love this book because the characters are deeply flawed, selfish, and absolutely human.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER
“A spellbinding novel” (People) from the New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Franzen, the author of Crossroads, The Corrections is a comic, tragic epic of worlds colliding: an old-fashioned world of civic virtue and sexual inhibitions, a new world of home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental health care, and globalized greed.
After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson’s disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the…
In this wildly imaginative and delightfully funny novel that includes a family trip to Antarctica, the main character, Bernadette Fox, is an unconventional mother to say the least. Her marriage is in trouble and she abandons her daughter. And yet, this family loves one another so deeply, they find ways to face their problems that bring them closer together.
A misanthropic matriarch leaves her eccentric family in crisis when she mysteriously disappears in this "whip-smart and divinely funny" novel that inspired the movie starring Cate Blanchett (New York Times).
Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect; and to 15-year-old Bee, she is her best friend and, simply, Mom.
Then Bernadette vanishes. It all began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle --…
A hundred years in the future, the world has been ravaged by climate change, dwindling resources, and pandemics – one of which has wiped out most of the men. A women’s republic has arisen, sustained by cloning, and privileged teenager Clara Perdue is desperate to become…
White Oleander tells the story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, who is left to fend for herself in a series of foster homes. The turbulent, difficult mother-daughter relationship in this novel is forever seared into my mind. At its core, this is a novel about finding one's way, no matter what.
White Oleander is a painfully beautiful first novel about a young girl growing up the hard way. It is a powerful story of mothers and daughters, their ambiguous alliances, their selfish love and cruel behaviour, and the search for love and identity.Astrid has been raised by her mother, a beautiful, headstrong poet. Astrid forgives her everything as her world revolves around this beautiful creature until Ingrid murders a former lover and is imprisoned for life. Astrid's fierce determination to survive and be loved makes her an unforgettable figure. 'Liquid poetry' - Oprah Winfrey 'Tangled, complex and extraordinarily moving' - Observer
This story is about a Pennsylvania family threatened by betrayal, financial desperation, old flames, fracking, and ultimately finding forgiveness.
In the novel, Green Energy arrives, offering the impoverished rural community of Minden, Pennsylvania, the dream of making more money from their land by leasing natural gas rights for drilling. But orchardist, Jack Pierson, fears his brother, Wade, who now works for Green Energy, has returned to town after a shame-filled twenty-year absence so desperate to be the hero that he’ll blind their hometown to the potential dangers. Family decisions lead to tragedy and Jack must fight to find a common ground that will save his fractured family, their land, and the way of life they love.
A haunting portrait of what happens when ambition, grief, and guilt collide. Some books break your heart. Others help you pick up the pieces. A Fine Layer of Dust does both.
After one irreversible moment tears two families apart, everyone must confront the impossible choices that shaped them. This is…
In River City, loyalty is everything—and nothing defines it more than warcheck, the elegantly violent game that unites the town.
Terra Laclem, daughter of a retired warcheck legend, is raised to honor family, faith, and tradition. But when her father betrays the ideals he’s always preached, Terra is forced to…
