Synopses & Reviews
What if everything you knew about your life was wrong?
Years ago, Juliet Clark gave up her life in California to follow the man she loved to Mexico and pursue her dream of being an artist. Now her marriage is over, and shes alone, selling watercolors to tourists on the Puerto Vallarta boardwalk.
When her brother asks her to come home to wintery New England and care for their ailing mother, a flamboyant actress with a storied past, Juliet goes reluctantly. She and her self-absorbed mother have always clashed. Plus, nobody back home knows about her divorceor the fact that shes pregnant and her ex-husband is not the father.
Juliet intends to get her mother back on her feet and return to Mexico fast, but nothing goes as planned. Instead she meets a man who makes her question every choice and reawakens her spirit, even as she is being drawn into a long-running feud between her mother and a reclusive neighbor. Little does she know that these relationships hold the key to shocking secrets about her family and herself that have been hiding in plain sight.
CONVERSATION GUIDE INCLUDED
Review
“A gripping, potent, and blisteringly well-written story of family, dilemma, and consequence. While the setting is thoroughly modern, the drama feels as ancient and inevitable as a Greek myth. I read this book with white-knuckled urgency, and finished it in tears. Helen Schulman is an absolutely brilliant novelist.” Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Committed and Eat, Pray, Love
Review
“In the hands of a lesser writer, this might have been simply a book about a scandal; Helen Schulman, though, has a long enough view, and a large enough heart, to have found in that scandals outlines a mournful and affecting portrait of our brave new social world.” Jonathan Dee, Author of The Privileges
Review
“A rich, engrossing, and surprisingly nuanced novel exploring timeless questions of guilt and responsiblity.” O, The Oprah Magazine
Review
“This Beautiful Life isnt just an intimate look at family breaking down under intense pressure; its also a sharp and unsparing indictment of a culture in search of scapegoats. In this timely and provocative novel, Helen Schulman maps out the contours of a contemporary American nightmare.” Tom Perrotta, author of The Leftovers and Little Children
Review
“A harrowing and moving account of just how much twenty-first-century technology has magnified the scope of the kind of imbecilities in which teenagers excel. Its poignant about the fragility of even those homes that are seemingly invulnerably insulated by privilege and caring and vigilant parents.” Jim Shepard, author of Like You'd Understand, Anyway
Review
“With psychological acuity and cinematic pacing, Helen Schulman takes a hypercontemporary nightmare…and parlays it into a wildly compelling novel about parenting, privilege, and the fragility of happiness…. This Beautiful Life is moving, disturbing, and grandly incisive.” Jonathan Miles, author of Dear American Airlines
Review
“Helen Schulman is one of the most gifted writers of her generation.” Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Good Squad
Review
“Helen Schulmans trenchant social observations and precise, lucid writing are brought to bear on the timely story of a crisis in the life of the Bergamot family…. Schulman takes on a controversial topic with depth, evenhandedness, and warmth. Spare and focused, This Beautiful Life packs a wallop.” Kate Christensen, author of The Epicure's Lament and The Great Man
Review
“In another writers hands, it might come out as a cautionary tale, but Schulman is careful not to paint anyone as villain or victim.” Hannah Gerson, New York Observer
Review
“Schulmans topical, unsettling new novel [is] set in Manhattans world of private-school privilege but chillingly relatable for parents anywhere…. Raising tough questions about child rearing, morality and the way the Internet both frees and imprisons, Schulmans story resonates.” People (3 ½ out of 4 stars)
Review
“This Beautiful Life is as much a bracing novel as a timely cautionary tale…. Schulman has managed to capture this bizarre of-the-moment tragedy in a novel that remains deeply humane and sensitive…. This Beautiful Life is a powerful story of a good family in crisis.” Mary McGarry Morris, Washington Post
Review
“Riveting. . . . As much as this book fiercely inhabits our shared online reality, it operates most powerfully on a deeper level, posing an enduring question about American values.” Maria Russo, New York Times Book Review
Review
“A luminous novel of buried secrets.”—
New York Times bestselling author Caroline Leavitt
"A story about love, loss, secrets, and finding out where we're really supposed to be."—Maddie Dawson, author of The Stuff that Never Happened
"A novel that sings: of love for a child, regret for life, and the quiet triumphs of survival and finding each other again."—Susan Straight, National Book Award nominee for Highwire Moon and author of Between Heaven and Here
"Vivid [and] compassionate."—Margot Livesey
Review
**Chosen by Ladies Home Journal as a Great Summer Read** “A luminous novel of buried secrets.”—New York Times bestselling author Caroline Leavitt
"A story about love, loss, secrets, and finding out where we're really supposed to be."—Maddie Dawson, author of The Stuff that Never Happened
"A novel that sings: of love for a child, regret for life, and the quiet triumphs of survival and finding each other again."—Susan Straight, National Book Award nominee for Highwire Moon and author of Between Heaven and Here
"Vivid [and] compassionate." —Margot Livesey
"Robinson's first novel sparkles with warmth and wit while tackling the prickly sides of a mother-daughter relationship. . .With deeply emotional passages tempered by humor and some surprising romance, Robinson's portrayal of family members striving to forge deeper connections after self-imposed absences is compelling. Fans of Martha Southgate and Heidi W. Durrow will enjoy this tender, full-hearted tale of quiet triumphs, mended fences and new connections."—Booklist
"There are relationship twists aplenty, relationships rearranged and reassessed, relationships that grow and others that die, and brand new relationships to explore. . .Robinson's fiction debut is a good beach read for those who like to reflect on the complexity and messiness of family relationships."—Kirkus Reviews
“So appealing and addictive.”—Novel Escapes (4 ½ stars)
"An easy and engaging read, The Wishing Hill is an excellent choice for book lovers who can relate to the sometimes thorny aspects of family life.”—Merrimack Valley Magazine
Synopsis
"
ThisBeautiful Life is a gripping, potent and blisteringly well-written story offamily, dilemma, and consequence. . . . I read this book with white-knuckledurgency, and I finished it in tears. Helen Schulman is an absolutely brilliantnovelist." —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of
Eat, Pray, Love Theevents of a single night shatter one familys sense of security and identity inthis provocative and deeply affecting domestic drama from Helen Schulman, theacclaimed author of A Day at the Beach and Out of Time. In thetradition of Lionel Shriver, Sue Miller, and Laura Moriarty, Schulman crafts abrilliantly observed portrait of parenting and modern life, cunningly exploringour most deeply-held convictions and revealing the enduring strengths thatemerge in the face of crisis.
Synopsis
When fifteen-year-old Jake Bergamot receives—and then forwards to a friend—a sexually explicit video that an eighth-grade admirer sent to him, the video goes viral within hours. The scandal that ensues threatens to shatter his familys sense of security and identity—and, ultimately, their happiness. This Beautiful Life is a devastating, clear-eyed portrait of modern life that will have readers debating their assumptions about family, morality, and the choices we make in the name of love.
About the Author
Holly Robinson is an award-winning journalist whose work appears regularly in national venues such as Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, Huffington Post, Ladies Home Journal, More, Open Salon, and Parents. Her first book, The Gerbil Farmers Daughter: A Memoir, was a Target Breakout Book. Robinson holds a BA in biology from Clark University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of MassachusettsAmherst. She and her husband have five children, two cats, a grumpy hamster, and two very stubborn small dogs.