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Published Oct 2006
304 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Thanksgiving, homecoming, reunion - family ideals shared across generations and geography. But does reality ever live up to expectations? The Fiske family is gathered for a classically disjointed Thanksgiving, driven by old jealousies, dangerous misconceptions, and grudging love - the worst kind. The family table groans with the weight of guilt and blame. The result is a taut story of a twenty-first-century family’s unraveling, played against a famous nineteenth-century writer’s own family dysfunction.
"Berne takes an inherently dramatic conflict - one sister's intention to obfuscate the hard truths of the past vs. another's determination to drag them under a spotlight —and ratchets up the stakes with astute observation and narrative cunning." - PW starred review.
"This substantial tale of a dysfunctional family reunion promises a holiday, and a read, to remember." - Kirkus.
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Avery Kimmell
Suzanne Berne is the author of the novels The Dogs of Littlefield, A Crime in the Neighborhood, A Perfect Arrangement, and The Ghost at the Table, as well as Missing Lucile: Memories of the Grandmother I Never Knew, part biography and part memoir. She has taught at Harvard University as a Briggs-Copeland Fellow and at Wellesley College. Currently she teaches creative writing at Boston College and lives outside of Boston with her husband, Kenneth Kimmell, President of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and their two daughters.
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