Synopses & Reviews
Named a Best of 2013 pick by: The New York Times Book Review, Slate, Newsday, Chicago Tribune, San Jose Mercury News, The Christian Science Monitor, Library Journal, and BookPage
"I thought this was a gripping, big-hearted book . . . through the tender voice of her protagonist, Fowler has a lot to say about family, memory, language, science, and indeed the question of what constitutes a human being."--Khaled Hosseini
From the New York Timesbestselling 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. Its never going to be the first thing I share with someone. I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you arent thinking of her as my sister. But until Ferns expulsion, Id 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, shes managed to block a lot of memories. Shes 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.
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"Bright, engaging, dexterous literary entertainment for everyone, though with many special treats and pleasures for Janeites." Kirkus Reviews
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"Fowler, a captivating and good-hearted satirist, exuberantly pays homage to and matches wits with Jane Austen in her most pleasurable novel to date." Donna Seaman, Booklist (Starred Review)
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"[I]f there was ever an invitation to settle down with a cup of Earl Grey and a smart story with literature at its heart, this is the one." Anita Sama, USA Today
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"It's just as hard to explain quite why The Jane Austen Book Club is so wonderful. But that it is wonderful will soon be widely recognized, indeed, a truth universally acknowledged." Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World
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"Fowler's shrewdest, funniest fiction yet, a novel about how we engage with a novel. You don't have to be a student of Jane Austen to enjoy it, either." Patricia T. O'Conner, The New York Times Book Review
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"[T]errific....Start quoting a few of Fowler's puckish lines and it becomes damnably difficult to stop. But there's more going on here than great comedy....Karen Joy Fowler deserves every success this savvy, episodic but chamois-smooth novel can bring." David Kipen, San Francisco Chronicle
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"In Ms. Fowler's wit, the way she renders the pratfalls of emotion and desire...she comes closest to her model. She is weaker with plot: some of the club members' own stories drag or else seem feverishly forced." Richard Eder, The New York Times
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"A luxuriant pleasure!" Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones
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"I love this book! I haven't read Austen for years, Fowler's story worked like a charm." Sue Grafton, author of Q is for Quarry
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"I'm instinctively wary of genetic engineering, but Karen Fowler may have produced a literary equivalent of the elusive Super Tomato. The Jane Austen Book Club is modern chick lit spliced with genes from 19th-century romantic comedy. In fact, Fowler has so craftily designed this new novel to appeal to smart, middle-aged, book-buying women that one regards its demographic precision cynically. I'm sorry to report that it's delightful." Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire Christian Science Monitor review)
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"The Jane Austen Book Club has received a lot of accolades, but frankly I don't get what all the hubbub is about. The 'postmodern'...fuss seems to be based entirely on Fowler's neat trick of writing individual story lines that mimic Austen novels....Is it asking too much for authors to lose the 'gee-whiz' factor and write organically? I can only assume that Fowler's book is doing so well because the title contains the words 'book club.' Her book is cheeky and cutesy and terribly shrewd. In this age of Oprah, it practically markets itself." Sacha Zimmerman, The New Republic (read the entire New Republic review)
Synopsis
Nothing ever moves in a straight line in Karen Joy Fowler's fiction, and in her latest, the complex dance of modern love has never been so devious or so much fun.
Six Californians join to discuss Jane Austen's novels. Over the six months they meet, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. With her finely sighted eye for the frailties of human behavior and her finely tuned ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Fowler has never been wittier nor her characters more appealing. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships.
Dedicated Austenites will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through the novel, but most readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, despite two centuries of separation, unite two great writers of brilliant social comedy.
Synopsis
Nothing ever moves in a straight line in Fowler's fiction, and in her latest, the complex dance of modern love has never been so devious or so much fun. In this newest work, six Californians join to discuss Jane Austen's novels. Over the six months they meet, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens.
Synopsis
In California’s central valley, five women and one man join to discuss Jane Austen’s novels. Over the six months they get together, marriages are tested, affairs begin,
unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. With her eye for the frailties of human behavior and her ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Karen Joy
Fowler has never been wittier nor her characters more appealing. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships.
Dedicated Austenites will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through the novel, but most readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, despite two centuries of separation, unite two great writers of brilliant social comedy.
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
In Californias central valley, five women and one man join to discuss Jane Austens novels. Over the six months they get together, marriages are tested, affairs begin,
unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. With her eye for the frailties of human behavior and her ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Karen Joy Fowler has never been wittier nor her characters more appealing. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships.
Dedicated Austenites will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through the novel, but most readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, despite two centuries of separation, unite two great writers of brilliant social comedy.
Synopsis
A gripping, bighearted book.” Khaled Hosseini
Winner of the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award
One of the New York Times Book Review's 100 Notable Books of 2013 and named by The Christian Science Monitor as one of the top 15 works of fiction
The New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club introduces a middle-class American family, ordinary in every way but one.
Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. I was raised with a chimpanzee,” she explains. I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you arent thinking of her as my sister. But until Ferns expulsion
she was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half and I loved her as a sister.” As a child, Rosemary never stopped talking. Then, something happened, and Rosemary wrapped herself in silence.
In We Are All Completely beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler weaves her most accomplished work to datea tale of loving but fallible people whose well-intentioned actions lead to heartbreaking consequences.
Synopsis
An early work from PEN/Faulkner Award winner and Man Booker finalist Karen Joy Fowler, reissued and beautifully repackaged for new fans and old.
First published in 1998 to high praise, and now reissued with the addition of a prefatory essay, Black Glass showcases the extraordinary talents of this prizewinning author. In fifteen gemlike tales, Fowler lets her wit and vision roam freely, turning accepted norms inside out and fairy tales upside downpushing us to reconsider our unquestioned verities and proving once again that she is among our most subversive writers.
So, then: Here is Carry Nation loose again, breaking up discos, smashing topless bars, radicalizing women as she preaches clean living to men more intent on babes and booze. And here is Mrs. Gulliver, her patience with her long-voyaging Lemuel worn thin: Money is short and the kids cant even remember what their dad looks like. And what of Tonto, the ever-faithful companion, turning forty without so much as a birthday phone call from that masked man?
It is a book full of great themes and terrific storiesbut it is the way in which Fowler tells the tale, develops plot and character, plays with time, chance, and reality that makes these pieces so original.
About the Author
Karen Joy Fowler, a PEN/Faulkner and Dublin IMPAC nominee, is the author of the novels Sister Noon, Sarah Canary, and The Sweetheart Season, as well as the story collection Black Glass. She lives in Davis, California.