A Reunion of Ghosts: A Novel - Hardcover

Mitchell, Judith Claire

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062355880 ISBN 13: 9780062355881

Publisher: Harper, 2015

Synopsis

A NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FINALIST

“The Alter sisters are mordant, wry, and crystalline in wit and vision; it is a tremendous pleasure to rocket through generations of their family histories with them.” —Lauren Groff, New York Timesbestselling author of Fates and Furies, The Monsters of Templeton, and Arcadia

In the waning days of 1999, the last of the Alters—three damaged but wisecracking sisters who share an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side—decide it’s time to close the circle of the family curse by taking their own lives. But first, Lady, Vee, and Delph must explain the origins of that curse and how it has manifested throughout the preceding generations. Unspooling threads of history, personal memory, and family lore, they weave a mesmerizing account that stretches back a century to their great-grandfather, a brilliant scientist whose professional triumph became the terrible legacy that defines them. A suicide note crafted by three bright, funny women, A Reunion of Ghosts is the final chapter of a saga lifetimes in the making—one that is inexorably intertwined with the story of the twentieth century itself.

“Mitchell explores the mixed-blessing bonds of family with wry wit. This original tale is black comedy at its best.”—People Book of the Week

“A rich portrait of a complicated family, at turns violent and hilarious.”—Emma Straub, New York Timesbestselling author

About this title

About the Author:

Judith Claire Mitchell, author of the novel The Last Day of the War, is an English professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Mitchell has received fellowships from the James A. Michener/Copernicus Society, Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, Wisconsin Arts Board, and elsewhere. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Review:

“This is a triumphant, beautiful, and devastating novel about coincidences, family, and the sins of our fathers.” (Anthony Doerr, New York Times bestselling author of All The Light We Cannot See)

“Judith Claire Mitchell understands what’s at the marrow of our funny bones: that humor lives in darkness, that our families are our curses and our blessings, that great pain can beget great warmth and love.” (Lauren Groff, New York Times bestselling author of The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia)

“A rich portrait of a complicated family, at turns violent and hilarious, shot through with love and death and the scars that reappear generation after generation.” (Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of The Vacationers)

“Mitchell explores the mixed-blessing bonds of family with wry wit. This original tale is black comedy at its best.” (People Book of the Week)

“A Reunion of Ghosts is a darkly comic, multigenerational meditation on a family curse.... [It] balances gallows humor with the seriousness of the sisters’ history and is a memorable and meticulous exploration of personal responsibility and borrowed guilt.” (Los Angeles Times)

“Judith Claire Mitchell’s splendidly dark and comic novel A Reunion of Ghosts. . . is a very funny book but it is also tender, sombre and thought-provoking.” (Financial Times)

“What’s so funny about three sisters bent on committing suicide? Plenty, in the imagination of Judith Claire Mitchell.... Darkly witty.” (Dallas Morning News)

“Mitchell’s plot, which twists in unexpected but believable ways and opens up just when it seems as if it can only close in, is thoroughly satisfying, but it’s the tone of her novel―that ability to savor joy and sorrow at the same time―that makes it remarkable.” (Columbus Dispatch)

“The novel is written like a long, group suicide note filled with personal and family revelations―brutally funny ones.” (New York Post)

“Mitchell’s triumphant second novel explores love, identity, and the burdens of history in coruscating, darkly comic prose.... Moving nimbly through time and balancing her weightier themes with the sharply funny, fiercely unsentimental perspectives of her three protagonists... [it] is poignant and pulsing with life force.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review))

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0062355880
• ISBN 13: 9780062355881
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400