Synopses & Reviews
The Commons is a luxury retirement community in sunny, scenic Arizona whose regulations prohibit full-time residents under the age of fifty-five. It's also (theoretically) an ideal place for young professionals Seth and Alison Collier to accept jobs as a means of dealing (badly) with a recent loss.
But life in The Commons isn't all tee times and poolside lounging, and when a struggling resident, underwater on her mortgage and unable to relocate due to the nation's ongoing housing crisis, is discovered to be raising her grandson in secret, the story — with the help of a teenage beauty blogger and a retiree with reasons of his own to seek the spotlight — goes viral. You Could Be Home By Now explores the fallout for all involved, taking on the themes of grief and memory, aspiration and social class, self-deception and the drive in all of us to find a place to belong.
Review
"Poignant, funny debut....A hoot that will touch your heart!"
People Magazine
Review
"The setting is the only thing sleepy about Manaster's debut. Complex, interweaving stories tangle inside The Commons, a retirement community outside Tucson, Arizona....A scintillating drama that's touching, funny and impossible to put down."
Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Manaster's debut is an adventurous undertaking, both light and insightful. The wide range of characters...is well depicted and appealing. For fans of realistically written, flawed-human narratives — with a flair for fun."
Library Journal
Review
"In the best tradition of Jane Austen, Tracy Manaster's sharply observed, humane, and expertly constructed new novel has a keen intelligence, a warm heart, and a spine of steel. Told in glitteringly witty prose with a wide range of brilliantly evoked characters, it is honest about the inevitability of loss and hopeful about the possibility of joy. It's also the most fun I've had reading a novel in ages."
James Hynes, author of Next
Review
"In You Could Be Home By Now, Tracy Manaster delivers a many-faceted gem of a story, featuring a lively and compelling range of characters, — each one real enough to step off the page. Tracy's savagely intelligent prose eases from heartbreak to humor effortlessly. I loved this book. A remarkable achievement, one that bears not just reading, but rereading."
V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of Love Marriage
Synopsis
An hour and a half outside Tucson, Arizona, The Commons is a luxury retirement community where no full-time resident under the age of fifty-five is permitted. Young professionals Seth and Alison Collier accept jobs there as a means of dealing (badly) with a recent loss. When a struggling resident, underwater on her mortgage and unable to relocate due to the nation s ongoing housing crisis, is discovered to be raising her grandson in secret, the story--with the help of a well-meaning teenaged beauty blogger and a retiree with reasons of his own to seek the spotlight--goes viral. You Could Be Home By Now explores the fallout for all involved, taking on the themes of grief and memory, aspiration and social class, self-deception, and the drive in all of us to find a place to belong.
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About the Author
Tracy Manaster is a graduate of Wesleyan University and The Iowa Writers' Workshop. She was the 2006 recipient of the National League of American Pen Women's Joanna Catherine Scott prize for novel excerpt. Her nonfiction has appeared in Iagora and Moxie magazines and as interactive exhibit texts for The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and twin daughters.
Tracy Manaster on PowellsBooks.Blog

Six months out of my MFA program and 60-odd pages from completing my first-ever draft of my first-ever novel, I read (while — confession time — procrastinating on said novel) a glossy lifestyle piece on buying your second home first. I don’t remember the particular magazine, but I do recall irritation hitting me with all the subtlety of the magazine's perfume samples...
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