Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots - Hardcover

Soffer, Jessica

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0547759266 ISBN 13: 9780547759265

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013

Synopsis

“Elegant, sensual, surprising, and rich, Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots delivers a world to us, populated with indelible characters whose fates, as they become entwined, spur us to read fast, faster, except to do so would be to miss the beauty of Soffer’s language, which is to be savored.” — Dani Shapiro, author of Family History

This is a story about accepting the people we love—the people we have to love and the people we choose to love, the families we’re given and the families we make. It’s the story of two women adrift in New York, a widow and an almost-orphan, each searching for someone she’s lost. It’s the story of how, even in moments of grief and darkness, there are joys waiting nearby.

Lorca spends her life poring over cookbooks, making croissants and chocolat chaud, seeking out rare ingredients, all to earn the love of her distracted chef of a mother, who is now packing her off to boarding school. In one last effort to prove herself indispensable, Lorca resolves to track down the recipe for her mother’s ideal meal, an obscure Middle Eastern dish called masgouf.

Victoria, grappling with her husband’s death, has been dreaming of the daughter they gave up forty years ago. An Iraqi Jewish immigrant who used to run a restaurant, she starts teaching cooking lessons; Lorca signs up.

Together, they make cardamom pistachio cookies, baklava, kubba with squash. They also begin to suspect they are connected by more than their love of food. Soon, though, they must reckon with the past, the future, and the truth—whatever it might be. Bukra fil mish mish, the Arabic saying goes. Tomorrow, apricots may bloom.

About this title

About the Author

JESSICA SOFFER earned her MFA at Hunter College, where she was a Hertog Fellow. Her work has appeared in Granta, Vogue and the New York Times, among other publications. Her father, a painter and sculptor, emigrated from Iraq to the US in the late 1940s. She teaches fiction at Connecticut College and lives in New York City.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots

A profound and necessary new voice. Soffer has arrived with an orchestra of talent at her disposal. Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin

Soffer s gorgeous and word-wise novel shows us how a single sentence can contain wonders, and a kitchen can contain epics; this is a fantastic debut. Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances

This beautiful book calls to mind The Elegance of the Hedgehog, for its artistry and heart, and for its two unlikely soul mates one old, one young, both harboring private grief, shaping their lives around what is missing, looking for families fate has denied them. I dare anyone to barricade their heart against this enchanting novel. Stephanie Kallos, author of Broken for You

Lit by prose of startling beauty and originality, this novel of loss, love, food, and finding family is that rare debut with the capacity to genuinely satisfy the broadest swath of readers from foodies to poets, mothers to daughters, solitary late-night readers to friends debating subjects close to their hearts. Nicole Mones, author of The Last Chinese Chef

I devoured this mouth-watering story of self-discovery. With prose sharp as a paring knife, Soffer shows us that love transcends cultural boundaries, age, old wounds, and new seasons. So, too, does this novel. Sarah McCoy, author of The Baker s Daughter

This story of lost souls hanging on to each other for dear life is an emotional page-turner with characters who touched my heart and soon felt like old friends. It commandeered my time until the sweet and satisfying ending. Bo Caldwell, author of The Distant Land of My Father

From the Inside Flap

Elegant, sensual, surprising, and rich, Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots delivers a world to us, populated with indelible characters whose fates, as they become entwined, spur us to read fast, faster, except to do so would be to miss the beauty of Soffer s language, which is to be savored. Dani Shapiro, author of Family History

This is a story about accepting the people we love the people we have to love and the people we choose to love, the families we re given and the families we make. It s the story of two women adrift in New York, a widow and an almost-orphan, each searching for someone she s lost. It s the story of how, even in moments of grief and darkness, there are joys waiting nearby.

Lorca spends her life poring over cookbooks, making croissants and chocolat chaud, seeking out rare ingredients, all to earn the love of her distracted chef of a mother, who is now packing her off to boarding school. In one last effort to prove herself indispensable, Lorca resolves to track down the recipe for her mother s ideal meal, an obscure Middle Eastern dish called masgouf.

Victoria, grappling with her husband s death, has been dreaming of the daughter they gave up forty years ago. An Iraqi Jewish immigrant who used to run a restaurant, she starts teaching cooking lessons; Lorca signs up.

Together, they make cardamom pistachio cookies, baklava, kubba with squash. They also begin to suspect they are connected by more than their love of food. Soon, though, they must reckon with the past, the future, and the truth whatever it might be. Bukra fil mish mish, the Arabic saying goes. Tomorrow, apricots may bloom.

Reviews

When 14-year-old Lorca is discovered cutting herself at school and is suspended, her mother decides to send her to a private school. Hoping to dissuade her, Lorca sets out to find a recipe for Masgouf, an obscure Iraqi dish that her mother, a chef, once said was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. Lorca’s quest leads her to Victoria, an elderly Iraqi-Jewish immigrant who can teach her how to make the dish. Both lost souls, the two bond and soon begin to suspect there is a connection between them larger than that of teacher and student. Told in Victoria and Lorca’s alternating first-person voices, the character-driven novel focuses, sometimes microscopically, on the characters’ troubled emotional lives. The slow pace of the developing story sometimes tests the reader’s patience but nevertheless offers fully realized, multidimensional characters who invite empathy and compassion. --Michael Cart

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0547759266
• ISBN 13: 9780547759265
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336