-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
The sky is falling for the Caspers, a family of cowards: for Jonathan, a paleontologist, searching in vain for a prehistoric giant squid; for his wife, Madeline, an animal behaviorist with a failing experiment; for their daughter, Amelia, a disappointed teenage revolutionary; for her younger sister, Thisbe, on a frustrated search for God; and for grandfather Henry, who wants to disappear, limiting himself to eleven words a day, then ten, then nine… Each fears uncertainty and the possibilities that accompany it. When Jonathan and Madeline suddenly decide to separate, this nuclear family is split, each member forced to confront his or her own cowardice, finally coming to appreciate the cloudiness of the modern age. With wit and humor, The Great Perhaps presents a revealing look at anxiety, ambiguity, and the need for complicated answers to complex questions.
"Meno's handle on the written word is fresh and inviting, conjuring a story that delves deeply into the human heart." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. The text contains more elements of magical realism than Meno's previous work, yet even the human-shaped cloud that Madeline chases for weeks somehow seems real thanks to the note-perfect dialog and narrative." - Library Journal
"Definitely out of the ordinary, and not the ideal book to digest in one sitting, but a mature step forward for this unsettling postmodernist." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about The Great Perhaps 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.
Nelson Algren Literary Award winner Joe Meno is the author of four novels and two short story collections, including Demons in the Spring. He is a professor of creative writing at Columbia College Chicago, where he lives with his wife and daughter.
If you liked The Great Perhaps, try these:
by Anne Michaels
Published 2025
A breathtaking and ineffable new novel from the author of the international best sellers Fugitive Pieces and The Winter Vault—a novel of love and loyalty across generations, at once sweeping and intimate
by Alex Landragin
Published 2021
Alex Landragin's Crossings is an unforgettable and explosive genre-bending debut--a novel in three parts, designed to be read in two different directions, spanning a hundred and fifty years and seven lifetimes.
by Katy Simpson Smith
Published 2021
From a supremely talented author comes this brilliant and inventive novel, set in Rome in four different centuries, that explores love in all its various incarnations and ponders elemental questions of good and evil, obedience and free will that connect four unforgettable lives.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don'...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
