The Birthdays tells the story of a unique family on the brink of a new generation, and examines modern-day marriage, pregnancy, and parenthood.
On an island off the coast of Maine, the Miller family reunites to celebrate the father’s seventy-fifth birthday. Each of the adult children is expecting his or her own first child. The eldest, Daniel, grapples with the fact that his wife had to be artificially inseminated. Jake, the middle child, discovers that his wife is carrying twins after many years of infertility treatments. Hilary—the free-spirited youngest daughter—arrives in Maine five months pregnant with no identifiable father in sight.
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Sixteen-year-Amy lies in a coma. Her elder sister, Moira, sits beside her in the evenings and tells this story seeking forgiveness and retribution. She tells of her own life—her secrets, her shameful actions, and her link to the accident that has brought her sister to this bed.
An only child until the age of eleven, Moira perceived the arrival of Amy as a betrayal. Sent away to boarding school, she became untrusting, inward, lonely. Even after marriage, she continued to doubt herself and that anyone could love her and be faithful. It is only Amy’s accident that brings her back to her family,
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The new novel from one of Ireland’s most prominent voices, The Gathering is an extraordinary anatomization of a family confronting the ghosts of its history.
A dazzling writer of international stature, Anne Enright is one of Ireland’s most singular voices. Now she delivers The Gathering, a return to an intimate canvas and a moving, evocative portrait of a large Irish family haunted by the past.
The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan are gathering in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother,
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In the best-selling tradition of The Color of Water comes a beautifully written, evocative memoir of a relationship between a mother and son—and the Chinese-American experience.
In The Eighth Promise, author William Poy Lee gives us a rare view of the Asian-American experience from a mother-son perspective. His moving and complex story of growing up in the housing projects of San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1960s and ’70s unfolds in two voices—the author’s own and that of his mother—to provide a sense of tradition and culture. It is a stunning tale of murder,
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The novel opens on a sweltering summer day in 1935 at the Tallis family’s mansion in the Surrey countryside. Thirteen-year-old Briony has written a play in honor of the visit of her adored older brother Leon; other guests include her three young cousins—refugees from their parent’s marital breakup—Leon’s friend Paul Marshall, the manufacturer of a chocolate bar called “Amo” that soldiers will be able to carry into war, and Robbie Turner, the son of the family charlady whose brilliantly successful college career has been funded by Mr. Tallis. Jack Tallis is absent from the gathering; he spends most of his time in London at the War Ministry and with his mistress.
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Emily has a tendency to live with one foot out the door. For her, the best thing about a family crisis is the excuse to cut and run. When her mother dramatically announces they’ve found a lump, Emily gladly takes a rain check on life to be by her mother’s side, leaving behind her career, her boyfriend, and those pesky, unanswerable questions about who she is and what she’s doing with her life.
But back in her childhood bedroom, Emily realizes that she hasn’t run fast or far enough. One evening, while her mother calls everyone in her Rolodex to brief them on her medical crisis and schedule a farewell martini,
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