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Set in midcentury America,At Last explores a rich family saga centered on two fierce and competitive matriarchs whose intertwined lives reflect the complexities of family, tradition, and personal ambition. "Whole lives course down the decades, and every minute is conveyed with Silver's signature combination of toughness and grace," (Laird Hunt).
Helene Simonauer and Evelyn Turner are two formidable women whose paths cross when their children marry. Both women are sharp, cunning, and unwavering in their conflicting beliefs about marriage, responsibility, and family and, most pressingly, their efforts to vie for the love of their shared granddaughter.
At Last paints a vivid portrait of the American Midwest, capturing the essence of a time and place where societal norms and personal aspirations often clashed. Marisa Silver's narrative weaves together the lives of Helene and Evelyn, from their vastly different childhoods through the pivotal events that define them. Both intimate and expansive, and capturing the complexities of ambition and love with humor and insight, At Last is a testament to what happens when an unintended, even unwanted relationship turns out to be a central one that defines a life.
"Masterful portraits of women's lives, only half lived." —Kirkus Reviews
"Silver strings together evocative vignettes depicting a series of consequential moments, each of which serve as prisms into the characters' complicated lives. It's a resonant family drama." —Publishers Weekly
"Silver's latest is a gorgeous testament to the endurance and depth of familial bonds."
—Booklist
"When Tom and Ruth marry in 1971, little do they consider that they are initiating a connection between their mothers that will deeply affect each other over the decades. I will never forget this smart, wry, gorgeous novel." —Alice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship Point
"No one else working today puts as much human complexity onto the page with such marvelous clarity as Marisa Silver. Whole lives course down the decades in her latest, and every minute of them is conveyed with Silver's signature combination of toughness and grace. The bar is very high, but I think At Last is her finest novel yet." —Laird Hunt, author of Zorrie
This information about At Last 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: Bader Howar
Marisa Silver made her fiction debut in The New Yorker when she was featured in that magazine's first Debut Fiction issue. Her collection of short stories, Babe in Paradise was published by W.W. Norton in 2001. It was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year.
In 2005, W.W. Norton published her novel, No Direction Home. Her novel, The God of War, was published in 2008 and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction. Her second collection of stories, Alone With You, was published in April, 2010. Winner of the O. Henry Prize, her fiction has been included in The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, as well as other anthologies. Her novel Mary Coin (2013) is also a New York Times Bestseller.
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Marisa Silver's Website
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