Overview

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • From the author of The Chalk Artist, this beloved collection of linked stories is “one of the most astute and engaging books about American family life to have come our way in quite a while” (The Boston Globe). In this beloved collection of linked short stories, Allegra Goodman writes with wit and compassion about three generations of Markowitzes: Rose, the displaced, cantankerous matriarch; her devoted son, Henry, an aesthete living abroad; his younger brother, Ed, a Georgetown scholar specializing in terrorism; Ed’s wife, Sarah, a housewife with stalled literary ambitions; and their eldest daughter, Miriam, whose budding Orthodoxy bewilders her parents. Through the rhythm of ordinary family rituals—weddings, holiday dinners, hospital vigils—Goodman breathes extraordinary life into a cast of characters who reverberate with authenticity and never fail to speak their minds. Praise for The Family Markowitz “These stories sound like no one else’s. . . . Goodman is brilliant at capturing the clutter of both interior and exterior life.”—Los Angeles Times “Entertaining . . . The Family Markowitz has great consistency and charm.”—Claire Messud, The New York Times Book Review “A revelation . . . Goodman’s prose has a steady, silent reserve that always indicates she has bigger things in mind.”—Dwight Garner, Salon “One of the most astute and engaging books about American family life to have come our way in quite a while . . . [Allegra Goodman] has a gift for conveying the peculiar subtleties of Jewish culture.”—The Boston Globe “Funny and wise and keenly observed . . . one of the most engaging, maddening, and recognizable families to come along in years . . . an enchanting book.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times 

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9780812984552

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Reviews

Exceptionally well-written: funny and wise and keenly observed . . . One of the most engaging, maddening and recognizable families to come along in years . . . An enchanting book. --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Deft and affectionate . . . Goodman is brilliant at capturing the clutter of both interior and exterior life. --Naomi Glauberman, Los Angeles Times The Family Markowitz is a revelation . . . Goodman's prose has a steady, silent reserve that always indicates she has better things on her mind. --Dwight Garner, Salon

Author Information

Allegra Goodman’s novels include The Chalk Artist, Intuition, The Cookbook Collector, Paradise Park, and Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award finalist). Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Commentary, and Ploughshares and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. She has written two collections of short stories, The Family Markowitz and Total Immersion and a novel for younger readers, The Other Side of the Island. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The Boston Globe, The Jewish Review of Books, and The American Scholar. Raised in Honolulu, Goodman studied English and philosophy at Harvard and received a PhD in English literature from Stanford. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writer’s Award, the Salon Award for Fiction, and a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced study. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she is writing a new novel.

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