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Published Jun 2016
320 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
From the award-winning author of No One Is Here Except All of Us, an imaginative novel about a wealthy New England family in the 1960s and '70s that suddenly loses its fortune - and its bearings.
Labor Day, 1976, Martha's Vineyard. Summering at the family beach house along this moneyed coast of New England, Fern and Edgar—married with three children - are happily preparing for a family birthday celebration when they learn that the unimaginable has occurred: There is no more money. More specifically, there's no more money in the estate of Fern's recently deceased parents, which, as the sole source of Fern and Edgar's income, had allowed them to live this beautiful, comfortable life despite their professed anti-money ideals. Quickly, the once-charmed family unravels. In distress and confusion, Fern and Edgar are each tempted away on separate adventures: she on a road trip with a stranger, he on an ill-advised sailing voyage with another woman. The three children are left for days with no guardian whatsoever, in an improvised Neverland helmed by the tender, witty, and resourceful Cricket, age nine.
Brimming with humanity and wisdom, humor and bite, and imbued with both the whimsical and the profound, Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty is a story of American wealth, class, family, and mobility, approached by award-winner Ramona Ausubel with a breadth of imagination and understanding that is fresh, surprising, and exciting.
"Starred Review. Ausubel's magical, engrossing prose style perfectly fits this magical, engrossing story." - Kirkus
"There is true wit in the author's depiction of these tumultuous decades, and with characters this memorable, the pages almost turn themselves." - Publishers Weekly
"Known for her fabulist fiction (No One Is Here Except All of Us, 2012), Ausubel offers a piercing view of the subtleties of class and privilege and what happens when things go awry." - Booklist
"Ramona Ausubel, easily one of the most inventive writers around, chronicles their odyssey with prodigious tenderness and nimble magic. Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty is a wild wonder of a novel." - Laura van den Berg, author of The Isle of Youth and Find Me
"A riches-to-rags story with all the twists and unraveling you could want, embroidered divine in the wizardy mind of Ramona Ausubel, whose imagination and music are simply peerless. A gorgeous and moving must-read!" - Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Gold, Fame, Citrus and Battleborn
"Ramona Ausubel has given us a brilliantly imagined novel about family and fortune and the hidden knots between. You're holding a book brimming with life by an author bursting with talent." - Maggie Shipstead, author of Seating Arrangements and Astonish Me
This information about Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty 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.
Photo: Stephen Gordon
Ramona Ausubel is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of the novel No One Is Here Except All of Us and the short story collection A Guide to Being Born. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, One Story, The Paris Review Daily, Best American Fantasy, and elsewhere, and has received special mentions in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. She has been longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award and the Pushcart Prize.
Author Interview
Link to Ramona Ausubel's Website
Name Pronunciation
Ramona Ausubel: ah-soo-BELL
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