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Our Kind: A Novel in Storiesby Kate Walbert
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments: From the award-winning author of The Gardens of Kyoto comes this witty and incisive novel about the lives and attitudes of a group of women — once country-club housewives; today divorced, independent, and breaking the rules. In Our Kind, Kate Walbert masterfully conveys the dreams and reality of a group of women who came into the quick rush of adulthood, marriage, and child-bearing during the 1950s. Narrating from the heart of ten companions, Walbert subtly depicts all the anger, disappointment, vulnerability, and pride of her characters: "Years ago we were led down the primrose lane, then abandoned somewhere near the carp pond." Now alone, with their own daughters grown, they are finally free — and ready to take charge: from staging an intervention for the town deity to protesting the slaughter of the country club's fairway geese, to dialing former lovers in the dead of night. Walbert's writing is quick-witted and wry, just like her characters, but also, in its cumulative effect, moving and sad. Our Kind is a brilliant, thought-provoking novel that opens a window into the world of a generation and class of women caught in a cultural limbo. Review:"I have never been a huge fan of what are sometimes known as 'related short
stories'... [but] Kate Walbert has changed my mind about this. One of the many pleasures to be found in Our
Kind, a 'novel in stories,' is the fact that Walbert's chosen genre is acutely
suited to her artistic goals." Jennifer Egan, the New York Times Book Review Review:"Brilliant...Walbert's characters are caught like insects in amber as they make late-in-life discoveries no school could ever teach. Brittle, funny and poignant, this is a prickly treat." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) Review:"[A] crystalline second novel, Our Kind combines a wistful lyricism with wry humor in its portrayal....Kate Walbert's keen-eyed social observations (not unlike Jane Austen's)...really sparkle." Washington Times Review:"Whole lives — a generation, an era — are handled with grace, deftness, and skill...Then-and-now prose pieces that, at their best, are among the finest there can be." Kirkus Reviews Review:"Our Kind is a brave and beautiful book about love, friendship, and regret. In this remarkable novel, Kate Walbert, one of our finest writers, has given us a slyly comic, quietly shocking, deeply moving group portrait of a vanishing breed of American women." Tom Perotta, author of Election and Little Children Review:"[This] 'novel in stories' twines together select tales from the lives of a group of older women in gorgeous but taut lyrical prose. While Woolfian in spirit, the book's sharp, canny social observations are rather more Austenian." Salon.com Review:"Our Kind is the book you read along with Updike and Cheever...touching and often surreal. Walbert writes...with insight and compassion." Washington Post Review:"[E]xquisite. [T]his gang is the most inviting." Laura Miller, The New York Times Book Review Synopsis:From the award-winning author of The Gardens of Kyoto comes a witty novel about the lives of a group of women — once 1950s country-club housewives; today divorced, independent, and breaking the rules.
About the AuthorKate Walbert is the author of Where She Went and The Gardens of Kyoto. She teaches writing at Yale University and lives in New York City with her family. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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