The Middlesteins - Hardcover

Attenberg, Jami

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1455507210 ISBN 13: 9781455507214

Publisher: Grand Central Pub, 2012

Synopsis

For more than thirty years, Edie and Richard Middlestein shared a solid family life together in the suburbs of Chicago. But now things are splintering apart, for one reason, it seems: Edie's enormous girth. She's obsessed with food--thinking about it, eating it--and if she doesn't stop, she won't have much longer to live.

When Richard abandons his wife, it is up to the next generation to take control. Robin, their schoolteacher daughter, is determined that her father pay for leaving Edie. Benny, an easy-going, pot-smoking family man, just wants to smooth things over. And Rachelle-- a whippet thin perfectionist-- is intent on saving her mother-in-law's life, but this task proves even bigger than planning her twin children's spectacular b'nai mitzvah party. Through it all, they wonder: do Edie's devastating choices rest on her shoulders alone, or are others at fault, too?

With pitch-perfect prose, huge compassion, and sly humor, Jami Attenberg has given us an epic story of marriage, family, and obsession. The Middlesteins explores the hopes and heartbreaks of new and old love, the yearnings of Midwestern America, and our devastating, fascinating preoccupation with food.

About this title

Product Description:

Rare Book

Review:

The Middlesteins had me from its very first pages, but it wasn't until its final pages that I fully appreciated the range of Attenberg's sympathy and the artistry of her storytelling. (Jonathan Franzen)

Blazing, ferocious and greathearted ... The Middlesteins will blow you away (Lauren Groff)

Attenberg makes her characters' thoughts - Richard and Benny in particular - seem utterly real, and her wry, observational humor often hits sideways rather than head-on ... [A] wonderfully messy and layered family portrait (Kirkus)

The Middlesteins, the novel, is great literature: warm, tragic, funny and deeply, complexly, entirely human. (Stefan Merrill Block)

This gem of a book is swift, moving and brutally honest, but it has a family-centric moral at its heart: Without family, we are nothing. (New York Post)

Attenberg is superb at mocking the cliches of middle-class life by giving them the slightest turn to make people suddenly real and wholly sympathetic. (Washington Post)

Attenberg evokes memorable moments of authentic sadness and tenderness while thoughtfully and comically examining the question of what we inherit from our families. In the case of the Middlesteins, it is many things, including their sometimes-enduring love for each other. (San Fransisco Chronicle)

Edie pulses with life no matter how close she seems to dying, and her character is emblematic of the tough compassion Attenberg exhibits throughout the novel. (Chicago Tribue)

The Middlesteins is a marvel. (Molly Ringwald)

The Middlesteins is an absolute pleasure. (Francesca Segal)

About this edition

• Publisher: Grand Central Pub
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1455507210
• ISBN 13: 9781455507214
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 273