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Anne Lamott burst onto the literary scene in 1993 with Operating Instructions. This now-classic memoir of her son Sam's first year of life endeared her to single mothers, parents, and even non-parents across the country. With her new book, Some Assembly Required (Riverhead), she is set to do the same for grandparenthood. Stunned to learn that Sam, now 19, is about to become a father, Lamott begins a journal about the first year of her grandson Jax's life, recalling her own experiences with Sam when she was a single mother. Over the course of the year, the rhythms of life, death, family, and friends unfold in surprising and joyful ways. Please note: This ticketed event takes place at the Bagdad Theater, 3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Tickets, $26.95, include admission and a copy of Some Assembly Required and are available at the Bagdad Theater, the Crystal Ballroom, CascadeTickets.com, or by phone at 855-227-8499. Books distributed at event.
Anne Lamott's poignant first novel, reissued in an attractive new edition.
Writer (and sometime housecleaner) Jennifer is twenty-three when her beloved father, Wallace, is diagnosed with a brain tumor. This catastrophic discovery sets off Anne Lamott's unexpectedly sweet and funny first novel, which is made dramatic not so much by Wallace's illness as by the emotional wake it sweeps under Jen and her brothers, self-contained Ben and feckless, lovable Randy. With characteristic affection and accuracy, Lamott sketches this offbeat family and their nearest and dearest as they draw ever closer in the intimacy Jen prizes "among the other estimable things: good music, good hard laughter, good sex, good industry, and good books."
Anne Lamott is the author of five novels and two works of nonfiction, Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird. She lives in Northern California.
Writer (and sometime housecleaner) Jennifer is twenty-three when her beloved father, Wallace, is diagnosed with a brain tumor. This catastrophic discovery sets off Anne Lamott's unexpectedly sweet and funny first novel, which is made dramatic not so much by Wallace's illness as by the emotional wake it sweeps under Jen and her brothers, self-contained Ben and feckless, lovable Randy. With characteristic affection and accuracy, Lamott sketches this offbeat family and their nearest and dearest as they draw ever closer in the intimacy Jen prizes "among the other estimable things: good music, good hard laughter, good sex, good industry, and good books."
"The appeal of this book is . . . that it has much to say about how a good family works . . . in times both hard and easy . . . It's a moving and strangely joyful book, a kind of celebration, and it's written with an assurance far beyond the reach of most first novelists."Anne Tyler, The New York Times Book Review
"If love is details, so is storytelling, and Anne Lamott excels at it. Her way with analogy, metaphor, and evocative detail is subtle; her ability to shift from the specific to the general to the specific again, superb."Suzanne Mantell, The Nation
"Anne Lamott is a novelist of genius."Los Angeles Times
Review:
"In Hard Laughter, her first novel, Anne Lamott uses a brain tumor to glue together a wandering account of daily survival in a coastline town of northern California. The narrator and protagonist is Jennifer, a 24-year-old aspiring writer, and the tumor is in the brain of Wallace, her father. The setting is Clement, California, a town populated for the most part by a collection of characters as believable as those one might find in comic books. Lamott does well with Jennifer and a remarkable ten-year-old friend, but because many of the characters lack the depth that would bring them alive, the reader is left with a sense of having been only a spectator, of never having been involved in a crisis that demands extraordinary emotional resiliency of Jennifer and her family. The book's conclusion is an admirable exercise in restraint." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Synopsis:
Anne Lamott's poignant first novel, reissued in an attractive new edition.
Writer (and sometime housecleaner) Jennifer is twenty-three when her beloved father, Wallace, is diagnosed with a brain tumor. This catastrophic discovery sets off Anne Lamott's unexpectedly sweet and funny first novel, which is made dramatic not so much by Wallace's illness as by the emotional wake it sweeps under Jen and her brothers, self-contained Ben and feckless, lovable Randy. With characteristic affection and accuracy, Lamott sketches this offbeat family and their nearest and dearest as they draw ever closer in the intimacy Jen prizes "among the other estimable things: good music, good hard laughter, good sex, good industry, and good books."
Product details
304 pages
North Point Press -
English9780865472808
Reviews:
"Synopsis"
by Netread,
Anne Lamott's poignant first novel, reissued in an attractive new edition.
Writer (and sometime housecleaner) Jennifer is twenty-three when her beloved father, Wallace, is diagnosed with a brain tumor. This catastrophic discovery sets off Anne Lamott's unexpectedly sweet and funny first novel, which is made dramatic not so much by Wallace's illness as by the emotional wake it sweeps under Jen and her brothers, self-contained Ben and feckless, lovable Randy. With characteristic affection and accuracy, Lamott sketches this offbeat family and their nearest and dearest as they draw ever closer in the intimacy Jen prizes "among the other estimable things: good music, good hard laughter, good sex, good industry, and good books."
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