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Published Jul 2020
304 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
From the award-winning author of the acclaimed story collection The Heaven of Animals, called "a wise debut…beautiful [stories] with a rogue touch" (the New York Times Book Review), comes a sweeping, domestic novel about a family that reunites at their North Carolina lake house for one last vacation before the home is sold - and the long-buried secrets that are finally revealed.
The Starling family is scattered across the country. Parents Richard and Lisa live in Ithaca, New York, and work at Cornell University. Their son Michael, a salesperson, lives in Dallas with his elementary school teacher wife, Diane. Michael's brother, Thad, an aspiring poet, makes his home in New York City with his famous painter boyfriend, Jake. For years they've traveled to North Carolina to share a summer vacation at the family lake house.
That tradition is coming to an end, as Richard and Lisa have decided to sell the treasured summer home and retire to Florida. Before they do, the family will spend one last weekend at the lake. But what should to be a joyous farewell takes a nightmarish turn when the family witnesses a tragedy that triggers a series of dramatic revelations among the Starlings—alcoholism, infidelity, pregnancy, and a secret the parents have kept from their sons for over thirty years. As the weekend unfolds, relationships fray, bonds are tested, and the Starlings are forced to reckon with who they are and what they want from this life.
Set in today's America, Lake Life is a beautifully rendered, emotionally compelling novel in the tradition of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge, and Ann Patchett's Commonwealth.
"[B]eautiful... Poissant demonstrates superb talent for observation, cultivating a familiar, lived-in feeling of the family's lake house, where each character's unique viewpoint emerges powerfully and their everyday interactions gain greater significance. This is a remarkable, moving depiction of a family on the brink." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Masterfully crafted...Simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious, the novel's brisk pace and perfectly executed moments make for a stunning, unforgettable story...Poissant's compassion for his characters generates empathy for even their most disastrous actions. A totally engrossing story of the long shadows cast by troubled relationships and the glimmer of hope that dawns after painful confrontation." - Booklist (starred review)
"[Poissant's] gradual uncloseting of the sextet's many skeletons...is cleverly handled, although he tends to offer pat answers where one might expect more complication...A well-wrought family tale from a talented writer." - Kirkus Reviews
"Lake Like is a lyrically inventive and emotionally generous novel. Poissant is a gifted chronicler of the fault lines that lie just below family life." - Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation and the New York Times bestseller Weather
"A beautiful story about family and especially about the paradox of adult children. Vividly imagined and carefully rendered, Lake Life is both generous and unflinching. I loved every member of this functionally dysfunctional cast." - Karen Joy Fowler, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Jane Austen Book Club and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
"By turns moving, tender, and wryly funny, this gorgeously-written ensemble novel about the unspoken dreams and secrets and self-deceptions of a middle class family is deeply insightful and rewarding. David James Poissant is a young writer to watch!" - Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will
"Lake Life is an absolute wonder. By turns tender and wrenching, gorgeous and haunting, it explores what can emerge from the wake of tragedy and the depths of love. David James Poissant is a writer of the highest order, and this stunning novel is one readers will never forget." - Bret Anthony Johnston, author of the international bestseller Remember Me Like This
This information about Lake Life 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.
David James Poissant is the author of The Heaven of Animals: Stories, in print in five languages, winner of the GLCA New Writers Award and a Florida Book Award, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. His writing has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, One Story, Ploughshares, the Southern Review, and in numerous anthologies including New Stories from the South, Best New American Voices, and Best American Experimental Writing. A recipient of scholarships and fellowships from the Bread Loaf, Sewanee, Tin House, Wesleyan, and Longleaf writers' conferences, he teaches in the MFA program at the University of Central Florida and lives in Orlando with his wife and daughters. Lake Life is his first novel.
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