We Are Not Ourselves

Thomas, Matthew

3.72

29,594 ratings by Goodreads

ISBN 10: 1442369981 ISBN 13: 9781442369986

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2014

Destined to be a classic, this "powerfully moving" (Chad Harbach, "The Art of Fielding)," multigenerational debut novel of an Irish-American family is nothing short of a "masterwork." (Joshua Ferris, "Then We Came to the End"). Born in 1941, Eileen Tumulty is raised by her Irish immigrant parents in Woodside, Queens, in an apartment where the mood swings between heartbreak and hilarity, depending on whether guests are over and how much alcohol has been consumed. When Eileen meets Ed Leary, a scientist whose bearing is nothing like those of the men she grew up with, she thinks she's found the perfect partner to deliver her to the cosmopolitan world she longs to inhabit. They marry, and Eileen quickly discovers Ed doesn't aspire to the same, ever bigger, stakes in the American Dream. Eileen encourages her husband to want more: a better job, better friends, a better house, but as years pass it becomes clear that his growing reluctance is part of a deeper psychological shift. An inescapable darkness enters their lives, and Eileen and Ed and their son Connell try desperately to hold together a semblance of the reality they have known, and to preserve, against long odds, an idea they have cherished of the future. Through the Learys, novelist Matthew Thomas charts the story of the American Century, particularly the promise of domestic bliss and economic prosperity that captured hearts and minds after WWII. The result is a riveting and affecting work of art; one that reminds us that life is more than a tally of victories and defeats, that we live to love and be loved, and that we should tell each other so before the moment slips away. Epic in scope, heroic in character, masterful in prose, "We Are Not Ourselves "heralds the arrival of a major new talent in contemporary fiction.

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Review:

"[A] masterly debut."
--"Vanity Fair"

""The Corrections." "The Art of Fielding." Most years, there's a mega-hyped American epic that's heralded as a literary breakout. This year's, a saga about an Irish-American family in Queens, is refreshingly unpretentious but packed with soul--and profoundly moving characters." --"Entertainment Weekly," The Must List
"A stunning, stunning book...Possibly the most engaged I've been with any book this year."
--Phil Klay, "Year in Reading" on TheMillions.com

"The greatest Alzheimer's novel yet..."We Are Not Ourselves" exceeds the usual boundaries of fiction on the subject."
--Stefan Merril Block, NewYorker.com

""We Are Not Ourselves" is a powerfully moving book, and the figure of Eileen Leary mother, wife, daughter, lover, nurse, caretaker, whiskey drinker, upwardly mobile dreamer, retrenched protector of values is a real addition to our literature.
Chad Harbach, author of "The Art of Fielding""

""We Are Not Ourselves" is wonderful on the position of the striving classes and our longings on behalf of our families, and on how we deal with unexpected disaster. It s as fiercely passionate and big-hearted and memorable as Eileen, its I m-holding-this-family-together-with-my-two-hands protagonist."
Jim Shepard, author of "Project X" and "You Think That s Bad""

[A] masterly debut.
"Vanity Fair""

"The Corrections." "The Art of Fielding." Most years, there s a mega-hyped American epic that s heralded as a literary breakout. This year s, a saga about an Irish-American family in Queens, is refreshingly unpretentious but packed with soul and profoundly moving characters. "Entertainment Weekly," The Must List"

A gripping family saga, maybe the best I've read since "The Corrections."
Melissa Maerz, "Entertainment Weekly," Grade: A"

[A] devastating debut novel . . . an honest, intimate family story with the power to rock you to your core . . . [a] wrenchingly credible main character . . . rich, sprawling . . . Mr. Thomas s narrow scope (despite a highly eventful story) and bull s-eye instincts into his Irish characters fear, courage and bluster bring to mind the much more compressed style of Alice McDermott . . . Part of what makes "We Are Not Ourselves" so gripping is the credible yet surprising ways in which it reveals the details of any neuroscientist s worst nightmare . . . This is a book in which a hundred fast-moving pages feel like a lifetime and everything looks different in retrospect. As in the real world, the reader s point of view must change as often as those of the characters . . . This is one of the frankest novels ever written about love between a caregiver and a person with a degenerative disease. The great French film Amour conveyed the emotional aspects of such a relationship, but Mr. Thomas spares nothing and still makes it clear how deeply in love these soul mates are. Janet Maslin, "New York Times""

About the Author:

Matthew Thomas was born in the Bronx and grew up in Queens. A graduate of the University of Chicago, he has an MA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and an MFA from the University of California, Irvine. His New York Times-bestselling novel We Are Not Ourselves has been shortlisted for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction and longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. He lives with his wife and twin children in New Jersey.

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