11/11/2022 0 Comments Good drama books for adults![]() When this alternately bumbling and clever cast of characters comes together, they turn “as frothy and bitter as a pot of freshly brewed dark-roast coffee, the kind that’s always available on the Widdicombe’s sideboard. Meanwhile, a local named Marvelous Matthews is hired to create a garden at the manor-and is elated to find Gracie Sloane, bewitching self-help author, in residence as well. Their personal assistant, Michelle, begins a romance with preppy screenwriter Bradford, who also happens to be Frank’s tennis partner. The Widdicombes’ son, Christopher, is mourning a heartbreak after a year abroad in Italy. And so begins a whirlwind summer as their house becomes the epicenter of multiple social dramas involving the family, their friends, and a host of new acquaintances. But Carol is convinced that their new island home-Willowbrook Manor on the Puget Sound-is just the thing to cheer him up. The inimitable-some might say incorrigible-Frank Widdicombe is suffering from a deep depression. Named one of 2019’s most anticipated reads by Entertainment Weekly, “a hilarious and witty joy of a novel about a family’s insanely dramatic summer at their new island home” ( Cosmopolitan) in the Pacific Northwest. Rich with Ward’s distinctive, lyrical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic and unforgettable family story and “an odyssey through rural Mississippi’s past and present” ( The Philadelphia Inquirer). He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love. At Parchman, there is another thirteen-year-old boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. When the children’s father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. Simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high, Leonie is embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances. ![]() ![]() She wants to be a better mother but can’t put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. She is Black and her children’s father is White. She is an imperfect mother in constant conflict with herself and those around her. His mother, Leonie, is an inconsistent presence in his and his toddler sister’s lives. But there are other men who complicate his understanding: his absent White father, Michael, who is being released from prison his absent White grandfather, Big Joseph, who won’t acknowledge his existence and the memories of his dead uncle, Given, who died as a teenager. He doesn’t lack in fathers to study, chief among them his Black grandfather, Pop. Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. “Ward’s writing throbs with life, grief, and love… this book is the kind that makes you ache to return to it” ( Buzzfeed). Jesmyn Ward’s historic second National Book Award–winner is “perfectly poised for the moment” ( The New York Times), an intimate portrait of three generations of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle. WINNER of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD and A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BEST BOOK OF THE YEARĪ finalist for the Kirkus Prize, Andrew Carnegie Medal, Aspen Words Literary Prize, and a New York Times bestseller, this majestic, stirring, and widely praised novel from two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward, the story of a family on a journey through rural Mississippi, is a “tour de force” ( O, The Oprah Magazine) and a timeless work of fiction that is destined to become a classic. Here are a few books that portray some of the most complicated families in fiction, books that are packed with drama and heartbreak, humor and frustration, bitterness and love. But as we cope with the best and worst parts of our own family lives, we can take pleasure in reading wonderful novels that feature complicated families in upheaval, in reflection, and in reinvention. Those of us who have spent more time than usual locked down with our relatives in the past few months have probably felt every emotion from pure joy to frayed nerves to overwhelming tension. In her memoir The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr says, “A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.” We all know that families are imperfect, often messy, and sometimes wonderful. ![]() It is a hilarious and heartfelt new novel about a perfectly imperfect summer of love, secrets, and second chances. Her new book Musical Chairs publishes this summer, July 21, 2020. This post is written by Amy Poeppel, the author of the novels Small Admissions and Limelight. ![]()
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