-
Access Our
Best Book Club
Books of 2025!
Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Book Reviewed by:The story of an American family, middle class in middle America, ordinary in every way but one. But that exception is the beating heart of this extraordinary novel.
From the New York Times–bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club, the story of an American family, middle class in middle America, ordinary in every way but one. But that exception is the beating heart of this extraordinary novel.
Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and our narrator, Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. "I spent the first eighteen years of my life defined by this one fact: that I was raised with a chimpanzee," she tells us. "It's never going to be the first thing I share with someone. I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren't thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern's expulsion, I'd scarcely known a moment alone. She was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half, and I loved her as a sister."
Rosemary was not yet six when Fern was removed. Over the years, she's managed to block a lot of memories. She's smart, vulnerable, innocent, and culpable. With some guile, she guides us through the darkness, penetrating secrets and unearthing memories, leading us deeper into the mystery she has dangled before us from the start. Stripping off the protective masks that have hidden truths too painful to acknowledge, in the end, "Rosemary" truly is for remembrance.
Excerpt
We are all completely beside ourselves
As part of leaving Bloomington for college and my brand new start, I'd made a careful decision to never ever tell anyone about my sister, Fern. Back in those college days I never spoke of her and seldom thought of her. If anyone asked about my family, I admitted to two parents, still married, and one brother, older, who traveled a lot. Not mentioning Fern was first a decision, and later a habit, hard and painful even now to break. Even now, way off in 2012, I can't abide someone else bringing her up. I have to ease into it. I have to choose my moment.
Though I was only five when she disappeared from my life, I do remember her. I remember her sharply — her smell and touch, scattered images of her face, her ears, her chin, her eyes. Her arms, her feet, her fingers. But I don't remember her fully, not the way Lowell does.
Lowell is my brother's real name. Our parents met at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona at a ...
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
2014
I never felt I was reading a book about “issues” because Fowler imbeds [her subject matter] in deft prose and captivating characters. She unravels a tale begun in the middle, by taking the reader through a young woman’s memories and heartbreak to a believable happy ending. She captivated me completely...continued
Full Review
(624 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by Judy Krueger).
Alice Sebold, New York Times-bestselling author of The Lovely Bones and The Almost Moon
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is a dark cautionary tale hanging out, incognito-style, in what at first seems a traditional family narrative. It is anything but. This novel is deliciously jaunty in tone and disturbing in material. Karen Joy Fowler tells the story of how one animal - the animal of man - can simultaneously destroy and expand our notion of what is possible. Andrea Barrett, author of Servants of the Map and Ship Fever
In this curious, wonderfully intelligent novel, Karen Joy Fowler brings to life a most unusual family. Wonderful Fern, wonderful Rosemary! Through them we feel what it means to be a human animal. Dr. Mary Doria Russell, biological anthropologist and author of The Sparrow and Doc
You know how people say something is incredible or unbelievable when they mean it's excellent? Well, Karen Joy Fowler's new book is excellent: utterly believable and completely credible - a funny, moving, entertaining novel that is also an important and unblinking review of a shameful chapter in the history of science. Ursula K. Le Guin, author of Lavinia, The Unreal and the Real, and the Earthsea Cycle
Karen Joy Fowler has written the book she's always had in her to write. With all the quiet strangeness of her amazing Sarah Canary, and all the breezy wit and skill of her beloved Jane Austen Book Club, and a new, urgent gravity, she has told the story of an American family. An unusual family - but aren't all families unusual? A very American, an only-in-America family - and yet an everywhere family, whose children, parents, siblings, love one another very much, and damage one another badly. Does the love survive the damage? Will human beings survive the damage they do to the world they love so much? This is a strong, deep, sweet novel.People have debated the rights of animals since early times. The relationship between people and animals has generated many different and widely varying perspectives. Here's a quick trek through some of them, following in animals' footsteps – whether four-footed or two:
In the 6th century BCE, Pythagoras taught that both animals and humans had souls that reincarnated between the two. However, Aristotle in the 4th century BCE, in his writings on animal classification, placed non-human animals below humans in what became known as the Great Chain of Being.
Considering that the Book of Genesis tells us that Adam was given dominion over all other living creatures, leading to a widely accepted interpretation of animals as things to be ...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, try these:
by Ramona Ausubel
Published 2024
A playful, witty, and resonant novel in which a single mother and her two teen daughters engage in a wild scientific experiment and discover themselves in the process, from the award-winning writer of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty
by Frans de Waal
Published 2020
New York Times best-selling author and primatologist Frans de Waal explores the fascinating world of animal and human emotions.
The Seven O'Clock Club
by Amelia Ireland
Four strangers join an experimental treatment to heal broken hearts in Amelia Ireland's heartfelt debut novel.
One Death at a Time
by Abbi Waxman
A cranky ex-actress and her Gen Z sobriety sponsor team up to solve a murder that could send her back to prison in this dazzling mystery.
Happy Land
by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
From the New York Times bestselling author, a novel about a family's secret ties to a vanished American Kingdom.
The Fairbanks Four
by Brian Patrick O’Donoghue
One murder, four guilty convictions, and a community determined to find justice.
.gif)
The most successful people are those who are good at plan B
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!