The Adults

In her ruefully funny and wickedly perceptive debut novel, Alison Espach deftly dissects matters of the heart and captures the lives of children and adults as they come to terms with life, death, and love. At the center of this affluent suburban universe is Emily Vidal, a smart and snarky teenager, who gets involved in a suspect relationship with one of the adults after witnessing a suicide in her neighborhood. Among the cast of unforgettable characters is Emily's father, whose fiftiesth birthday party has the adults descending upon the Vidal's patio; her mother, who has orchestrated the elaborate party even though she and her husband are getting a divorce; and an assortment of eccentric neighbors, high school teachers, and teenagers who teem with anxiety and sexuality and an unbridled desire to be noticed, and ultimately loved.

On the Top 10 Fiction List for 2011. "[a] sincere debut...Tavia Gilbert’s narration adds candid poignancy to the story...Full of funny, wry, eccentric characters...recommended for fans of Cara Hoffman's So Much Pretty and Holly Goldberg Sloan's I'll Be There." - Library Journal

One of the Editor's Choice Top Adult & Youth Audiobooks of the Year (2011). Starred Review. "an engaging roller coaster of a listening experience. Gilbert is pitch-perfect in her delivery..." - Booklist

One of the 5 Best Books of 2011. "...excellent...Espach peppers the pages with supremely quotable lines and wonderful descriptions that make The Adults easily one of the best books of 2011." - The Long Island Press

"Narrator Tavia Gilbert deftly captures Emily's vulnerability, confusion, and wry analysis...Gilbert's unaffected presentation avoids sensationalizing Emily's rough language or the occasional description of a sexual encounter. Subtle shifts of tone are all Gilbert needs to give Emily a convincing voice..." - AudioFile Magazine

"…astute and funny…as idiosyncratic as it is stirring…" - The New York Times

One of the Discover Great New Writers Picks for Spring 2011. - Barnes and Noble

"[An] outstanding coming-of-age novel… one of the funniest books I've read in a long time." - Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

"[Espach] masters her teen’s voice exceptionally well...aptly describes the protracted adolescence of the contemporary American child..." - The Washington Post

"...wry, darkly scintillating...a gem of a coming-of-age first novel. [Alison] Espach’s effortless perspicacity and blindsiding humor is compulsively readable." - LeahReader.com

"With shining prose and razor-sharp wit, Alison Espach writes about the murky landscape between childhood and adulthood, the mistakes and misunderstandings, the betrayals and the beauty. THE ADULTS is a piercing and authentic journey through adolescence, filled with squeamish missteps and laugh-out-loud insights, wrenching heartache, and characters so rich and tenderly drawn that one can't help but love them through all their flaws and failures. I absolutely adored this book." - Aryn Kyle, author of The God of Animals and Boys and Girls Like You and Me

"Every single sentence has tragicomic verve in The Adults. Alison Espach's coming-of-age novel is jaggedly funny, moving when you least expect it, and wise beyond its years. Parental guidance is strictly optional to enjoy this gem of a debut." - Teddy Wayne, author of Kapitoil

"Alison Espach has written her debut novel in one of the most authentic and memorable voices I have ever read. Finding myself on every page of this heartbreaking and hysterically funny book, I began to have the same strange suspicion I had the first time I read Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Yates's Revolutionary Road and Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides: the impossible belief that the author might have written this book specifically for me. Like those classics, The Adults is wholly original, astonishingly true, and absolutely vital. - Stefan Merrill Block, Author of The Story of Forgetting and The Storm at the Door

An irresistible chronicle of a modern young woman's struggle to grow up.

Alison Espach received her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. Her fiction has appeared in McSweeney's and other journals. She lives in New York City, where she is currently teaching creative writing.

READER BIO

Producer Tavia Gilbert is an AudioFile Earphones Award winner, an Audie Award nominee, and a Parent's Choice Award winner. She makes her home in Portland, Maine, where she works as a writer and a stage and voice actor. Tavia produces, directs, and narrates unique audiobooks, full-cast recordings, and documentaries, and she is currently pursuing an MFA in creative nonfiction at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.