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Published Oct 2018
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A moving family saga about three generations of women who struggle to find freedom and happiness in their small Midwestern college town.
A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl is a poignant novel about three generations of the Wise family - Evelyn, Laura, and Grace - as they hunt for contentment amid chaos of their own making.
Evelyn set aside her career to marry, late, and motherhood never became her. Her daughter Laura felt this acutely and wants desperately to marry, but she soon discovers her husband Gabe to be a man who expects too much of everyone in his life, especially his musician son. Grace has moved out from Laura and Gabe's house, but can't seem to live up to her potential - whatever that might be.
In A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl we see these women and their trials, small and large: social slights and heartbreaks; marital disappointments and infidelities; familial dysfunction; mortality. Spanning from World War II to the present, Thompson reveals a matrilineal love story that is so perfectly grounded in our time - a story of three women regressing, stalling, and yes, evolving, over decades. One of the burning questions she asks is: by serving her family, is a woman destined to repeat the mistakes of previous generations, or can she transcend the expectations of a place, and a time? Can she truly be free?
"Thompson's novel is filled with real, complex characters whose destinies are inextricably tied to the women in their lives." - Publishers Weekly
"With low-key yet piercing humor, caustic observations balanced with compassion, and entrancing storytelling mojo, Thompson masterfully uncovers the contrary emotions surging beneath the flat, orderly landscapes and tidy homes of the Midwest…Like those of Jane Hamilton and Antonya Nelson, Thompson's embracing domestic novel invites reflection and discussion." - Booklist
"Thompson, who wrote movingly about another Midwestern family in The Year We left Home (2011), here creates a plot and characters that feel more diagrammed than lived." - Kirkus
"A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl is a story that illustrates our present moment through a keen and unflinching look at our past. Thompson's work centers on the Midwest, what some call 'fly over' country, but in her hands, we come to see that it is the center." - Tayari Jones, New York Times bestselling author of An American Marriage
"Gorgeously written and perfectly composed, this book is a powerful look at the unbidden forces that shape our lives and the unexpected places where love erupts and flourishes." - Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author of The Nest
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Marion Ettlinger
Jean Thompson is the author of fourteen books of fiction, including the National Book Award finalist Who Do You Love, the NYT bestseller The Year We Left Home, and the NYT Notable Book Wide Blue Yonder. Her work has been published in the New Yorker, as well as dozens of other magazines, and anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart Prize. She has been the recipient of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, among other accolades, and has taught creative writing at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Reed College, Northwestern University, and many other colleges and universities.
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