Our Short History

A Novel

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Buy on Amazon Buy on BN.com Buy on Bookshop.org
*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app

1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date 21 Mar 2017 | Archive Date 21 Apr 2017

Description

“Lauren Grodstein breaks your heart, then miraculously pieces it back together so it’s bigger—and stronger—than before.”  —Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You

How can a woman learn to let go of the people she loves the most? 

 
Karen Neulander, a successful New York political consultant and single mother, has always been fiercely protective of her son, Jacob, now six. She’s had to be: when Jacob’s father, Dave, found out Karen was pregnant and made it clear that fatherhood wasn’t in his plans, Karen walked out of the relationship, never telling Dave her intention was to raise their child alone.

But now Jake is asking to meet his dad, and with good reason: Karen is dying. When she finally calls her ex, she’s shocked to find Dave ecstatic about the son he never knew he had. First, he can’t meet Jake fast enough, and then he can’t seem to leave him alone. Karen quickly grows anxious as she watches Dave insinuate himself into Jake’s life just as her own strength and hold on Jake grow more tenuous.

As she struggles to play out her last days in the “right” way for Jake, Karen wrestles with the knowledge that the only thing she cannot bring herself to do for her son—let his father become a permanent part of his life—is the thing he needs from her the most. With heart-wrenching poignancy, unexpected wit, and mordant humor, Lauren Grodstein has created an unforgettable story about parenthood, sacrifice, and life itself.
 
“Lauren Grodstein breaks your heart, then miraculously pieces it back together so it’s bigger—and stronger—than before.”  —Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You

How can a woman learn to...

Advance Praise

“Funny and fast-paced and extraordinarily insightful on every page . . . Anyone lucky enough to get roughed-up by Grodstein's devastating, fearlessly honest, often hilarious, gorgeously written novel will exit it changed.” —Karen Russell, author of Vampires in the Lemon Grove

“Lauren Grodstein has written a book with such a complicated range of emotion that I can't quite understand how she does it. In highlighting the fragility and depth of the relationship between a parent and a child, Grodstein miraculously makes you love the complexity of this world even as it tears you apart. Our Short History is a novel that will reverberate in your heart long after you finish it.” —Kevin Wilson, author of The Family Fang

“Funny and fast-paced and extraordinarily insightful on every page . . . Anyone lucky enough to get roughed-up by Grodstein's devastating, fearlessly honest, often hilarious, gorgeously written...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781616206222
PRICE $26.95 (USD)
PAGES 352

Average rating from 56 members


Readers who liked this book also liked: