In the Middle of All This - Hardcover

Leebron, Fred G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151008345 ISBN 13: 9780151008346

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002

Synopsis

Martin Kreutzel and his ill sister, Elizabeth, are as close as grown siblings can be-they have an essential connection. However, she lives with her husband outside of London and he lives with his wife and two children in a small Pennsylvania college town where he and his wife are both professors. Neither one of them likes the atmosphere there but they both have tenure track positions and can raise their two children in a safe neighborhood, in a house they can own. As Elizabeth's cancer worsens, Martin's love for her cripples his abilities at work and at home. When Elizabeth's husband, Richard, disappears for a few days, and one of Martin's students hangs herself, Martin finds himself torn between serving his sister and being a good husband, father, and professor. After Martin makes a trip to London to be with his sister, the situation gets stranger, alarming even, when Richard returns and whisks his wife off for the day, disappearing again, except this time he takes Elizabeth with him.
Leebron's compelling third novel brings us into the world of domestic unease as two couples and their joined families wrestle with empathy's limitations in the uncompromising teeth of mortality.

About this title

About the Author

Fred G. Leebron, a creative writing professor and a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, has received a Fulbright scholarship, a James Michener Award, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and an O. Henry Award. His stories have appeared in numerous publications, including Grand Street, Triquarterly, and DoubleTake. He lives in south central Pennsylvania.

From the Back Cover

"In the Middle of All This is a very fine novel. It seizes the reader's attention and doesn't let go until the last word. It is really an extraordinary work in its understanding of the human condition, the shifting ways we feel about what happens to us, and in its beautiful plainness of language, plainness as essential as real emotion and real thought."
--Paula Fox, author of Borrowed Finery

"Written with remarkable clarity and honesty, this book is a poignant love song that celebrates the fears and difficulties of a family facing the potential vastness of loss. Bravely, unsparingly, Fred Leebron has placed with exquisite perfection, the small details of domestic life up against the large incomprehensibility of our mortality."
--Elizabeth Strout, author of Amy and Isabelle

|

"In the Middle of All This is a very fine novel. It seizes the reader's attention and doesn't let go until the last word. It is really an extraordinary work in its understanding of the human condition, the shifting ways we feel about what happens to us, and in its beautiful plainness of language, plainness as essential as real emotion and real thought."
--Paula Fox, author of Borrowed Finery

"Written with remarkable clarity and honesty, this book is a poignant love song that celebrates the fears and difficulties of a family facing the potential vastness of loss. Bravely, unsparingly, Fred Leebron has placed with exquisite perfection, the small details of domestic life up against the large incomprehensibility of our mortality."
--Elizabeth Strout, author of Amy and Isabelle

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0151008345
• ISBN 13: 9780151008346
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 251