Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2015
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Edith is a widowed landlady who rents apartments in her Brooklyn brownstone to an unlikely collection of humans, all deeply in need of shelter. Crippled in various ways - in spirit, in mind, in body, in heart - the renters struggle to navigate daily existence, and soon come to realize that Edith's deteriorating mind, and the menacing presence of her estranged, unscrupulous son, Owen, is the greatest challenge they must confront together.
Faced with eviction by Owen and his designs on the building, the tenants - Paulie, an unusually disabled man and his burdened sister, Claudia; Edward, a misanthropic stand-up comic; Adeleine, a beautiful agoraphobe; Thomas, a young artist recovering from a stroke - must find in one another what the world has not yet offered or has taken from them: family, respite, security, worth, love.
The threat to their home scatters them far from where they've begun, to an ascetic commune in Northern California, the motel rooms of depressed middle America, and a stunning natural phenomenon in Tennessee, endangering their lives and their visions of themselves along the way.
With humanity, humor, grace, and striking prose, Kathleen Alcott portrays these unforgettable characters in their search for connection, for a life worth living, for home.
"Starred Review. Quietly wonderful... Alcott displays a deft hand with every one of her odd and startingly real characters...The voices in this book speak volumes. A luminous second novel from a first-class storyteller." - Kirkus
"The writing is dreamy and easy to inhabit, but is occasionally undermined by its tendency toward abstraction, when it would benefit more from precise plot development. Nevertheless, Alcott's writing is generous, and her peculiar cast of characters memorable." - Publishers Weekly
"Alcott reveals stories of each character through staccato pacing that builds from whimsy to woe to redemption through the course of a delectably subtle yet sublimely fierce study of many forms of bravery and loyalty." - Booklist
"A stunningly sensitive exploration of how families are made and unmade, and how the search for one's place in the world can come to define a life. Kathleen Alcott writes characters so achingly real, they will take up permanent residence in your imagination." - Laura van den Berg, author of The Isle of Youth and Find Me
"Infinite Home is Kathleen Alcott at her lyrical best. In her arresting new novel, she explores the boundaries of family and fraternity, with a Brooklyn brownstone as the nexus of the occupants' interlocking worlds." - Nathan Englander
"Kathleen Alcott is part sculptor and part fire-breather - not only are these characters intricately carved but they stand up, walk right off the page and beckon us into a story that is both vivid and welcoming." - Ramona Ausubel, author of No One is Here Except All of Usand A Guide to Being Born
"Vibrant, inventive, expansive. Kathleen Alcott has peered through the walls of an everyday apartment building and transformed the private lives of its tenants into pure poetry." - Said Sayrafiezadeh, author of Brief Encounters with the Enemy
"Starting with the first page of Infinite Home, you will feel it: something different, something brave, and something fundamentally amazing about Kathleen Alcott's power over the English language. Every yearning character in this breakout novel is flesh and blood. Alcott's roving heart, and power as a storyteller, may very well be limitless." - Patrick Somerville, author of This Bright River
This information about Infinite Home was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kathleen Alcott is the author of the novel The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets, which was translated into several languages. Her fiction, criticism, and essays appear in publications including The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Coffin Factory, The Rumpus, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. Born in Northern California, she currently resides in Brooklyn.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
