Readers' rating:
Published Oct 2019
300 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Love is the foundation of family, but at what cost?
After Ben Novotny is born with a rare chromosomal disorder that produces profound mental disability and brain-racking seizures, his parents, Caroline and Perry, and their two other children are asked to give more than they have. When Ben is an infant, the care and the fear are constant. The demands and pressure only mount when he and his older brother and sister become teenagers. Ben needs even more from his family, just as Hugo, the athlete and the "good soul", and Ivy, the ambitious rebel, must carve out their own identities.
Over the span of decades, this deep and understanding novel follow each family member, Perry and Caroline, Hugo and Ivy, as their lives diverge. In Degrees of Difficulty, grace is found amidst heartache, love finds a way after loss.
"The novel is heartbreaking and enraging, even chilling, as it exposes, in straightforward and never-maudlin terms, the stresses and strains of providing constant care to someone who will never be independent...A stunning, heartfelt, and poignant debut." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Julie Justicz asks 'Could a child ask too much of his parents? And...what should a parent ask in return?' Degrees of Difficulty is the totally absorbing story of the many kinds of devastation that can wrack a family, no matter its passion to survive intact. Justicz writes with deep feeling and saving wit about her characters who leap, alive and hopeful, off the page." - Rosellen Brown, author of The Lake on Fire and Before and After
"Written with such tenderness and honesty, Degrees of Difficulty stole nights and weekends, as I found myself yearning to rejoin the journey of Ben's family. What an astonishing debut." - Alex Kotlowitz, author of here Are No Children Here: A Story of Two Boys Growing Up and An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago.
This information about Degrees of Difficulty was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Born and raised in England, Julie Justicz moved to the Bahamas when she was ten, and then to the United States as a teenager. She earned a law degree from the University of Chicago and received an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. As an attorney and advocate, Julie currently works on civil rights issues in Chicago. She lives in Oak Park, Illinois with her spouse, Mary, and their two children.
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