Synopses & Reviews
A New York Times bestseller in hardcover, The Year We Left Home is National Book Award finalist Jean Thompson’s mesmerizing, decades-spanning saga of one ordinary American family that captures the turbulent history of the country at large.Named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a People magazine “Pick of the Week,” and an Indie Next and Midwest Connections selection, The Year We Left Home is the career-defining novel that Jean Thompson’s admirers have been waiting for: a sweeping and emotionally powerful story of a single American family during the tumultuous final decades of the twentieth century.
Stretching from the early 1970s in the Iowa farmlands to suburban Chicago and across the map of contemporary America, The Year We Left Home follows the Erickson siblings as they confront prosperity and heartbreak, setbacks and triumphs, and seek their place in a country whose only constant seems to be breathtaking change. Ambitious and richly told, this is a vivid and moving meditation on our continual pursuit of happiness and an incisive exploration of the national character.
Review
“Wise and absorbing, this is one not to miss.” —People
Review
“An extraordinarily warm-hearted novel whose impressive humanity and lightness of touch refresh some narrative elements so abundantly precedented that most fiction writers would have been afraid to go near them.” —Jonathan Dee, The New York Times Book Review
Review
“Told with extraordinary grace . . . The clan at the center of Jean Thompson’s spare, startlingly resonant new novel remain inextricably linked to the place that made them, even as they reach for lives richer in both geography and purpose.” —Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly
Review
“Startlingly good . . . You may forget that the characters don’t really exist, that the Iowa farm family so expertly drawn by the author never drew breath themselves.” —Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune
Review
“Bleak, wry, and tender . . . Syntax and sense are so perfectly melded, the reader steps through the looking glass and lives in the world the words conjure. . . . Such is Thompson’s artistry that moments of everyday sorrow and nobility made me weep.” —John Repp, Cleveland Plain Dealer
Review
“[A] rich, detailed, resonant, emotionally spot-on novel . . . Thompson has a light, exquisite touch. The Year We Left Home feels weightless as a result. By the end of the novel, the reader knows more about the Ericksons than even the Ericksons. The effect is enormously satisfying, allowing the reader not only to connect the dots but to fill in the blanks the author shrewdly leaves wide open.” —Bill Eichenberger, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Review
“Powerful and darkly humorous . . . Thompson’s characters are sharply drawn and deeply familiar. Her dialogue is pitch-perfect.” —Laurie Hertzel, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Review
“Dazzling . . . Unforgettable . . . A masterful wide-angle portrait of an Iowa family over three decades. . . . Thompson’s ability to put these characters empathically on the page, in their special setting, over an extended period of years, with just the right dose of dark humor, rivals Richard Russo’s. . . . The novel is a powerful reflection on middle American life—on the changes wrought by the passing years and the values that endure.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Review
“An extraordinarily warm-hearted novel.” —Jonathan Dee, The New York Times Book Review
Review
“The Year We Left Home plumbs the American heart with rigor and intensity, seamlessly connecting one family’s fortunes to those of the larger national community.” —Liza Nelson, O: The Oprah Magazine
Review
“Fantastic . . . Enormously satisfying . . . Thompson has a light, exquisite touch. . . . Rich, detailed, resonant, emotionally spot-on.” —Bill Eichenberger, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Review
“Enlightening and quietly brilliant . . . Thompson is a master at mining the most ridiculous of human foibles while never losing compassion for her flawed characters.” —Connie Ogle, The Miami Herald
Review
“Wry and tender . . . Such is Thompson’s artistry that moments of everyday sorrow and nobility made me weep.” —John Repp, Cleveland Plain Dealer
Review
“A smart, resonant novel.” —Boston Globe
Synopsis
In this mesmerizing saga of one ordinary American family—proud, flawed, hopeful—navigating the tumultuous final decades of the American century, Jean Thompson delivers a sweeping, powerful novel that simultaneously captures the turbulent history of the country at large. Spanning from the early 1970s in the Iowa farmlands to contemporary Chicago and far beyond, The Year We Left Home is a vivid, moving meditation on our continual pursuit of happiness and an incisive exploration of our national character.
About the Author
Jean Thompson is the author of Who Do You Love: Stories, a 1999 National Book Award finalist for fiction, and the novels City Boy and Wide Blue Yonder, a New York Times Notable Book and Chicago Tribune