Landfall

“With her new novel Landfall, Ellen Urbani enters the world of American fiction with a bang and a flourish. She brings back the terrible Hurricane Katrina that tore some of the heart out of the matchless city of New Orleans, but did not lay a finger on its soul. It is the story of people caught in that storm and the lives both ruined and glorified in its passage. Her descriptions of the flooding of the Ninth Ward are Faulknerian in their powers. It’s a hell of a book and worthy of the storm and times it describes.”

– Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides

“A gorgeous and raw rendering of a young woman’s struggle for redemption, for forgiveness, for salvation, in the aftermath of the devastating catastrophe of Katrina. Landfall is not about a storm; it is about the resiliency of the human spirit, and our ongoing need to make sense of the world around us, no matter the cost. Urbani has crafted a powerful novel that will resonate in your soul long after you have turned the final page. Outstanding!”

– Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain

“Ellen Urbani has written an amazing and original piece of literature. If you love Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits you will love this book!”

– Fannie Flagg, author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

“From the first sentence, I was drawn into the intricately wrought emotional lives of Urbani’s nuanced characters and didn’t put the book down until I’d found my way to the end. This novel is as delightful and compelling as it is necessary, broadening the cultural conversation around community, love, loss and inequity. It’s about making human connections, particularly during times of grief. Landfall, like the best literature, delivers an expansive, rich sense of humanity.”

– Monica Drake, author of The Stud Book

“A deeply soulful novel set during the chaos of Hurricane Katrina and the long, moody ebb of its aftermath, Landfall recalls Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God for the strength of the women in its pages, and their resilience despite immeasurable loss. Urbani knows it’s only love that truly overcomes catastrophe, that even as we search for the answer to that most elusive question–Why?–everything in our lives can always change in an instant, sometimes even for the better.”

– Tony D’Souza, author of Mule

“Landfall is a poignant, provocative, and utterly compelling story of two fatherless girls forced into adulthood too soon. Ellen Urbani has accomplished the nearly impossible: creating a fictional world so real you’ll revel in its beauty and flinch from its pain. I could not put this book down. And the ending is worth every page that precedes it.”

– Hope Edelman, author of Motherless Daughters

“Reading Ellen Urbani’s writing is like reading a painting, or a song. It’s that colorful and alive. Urbani sweeps you up into her world and carries you through this gripping story about two young women affected by similar tragedies.”

– Kerry Cohen, author of Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity