The Arrivals
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3.8 • 10 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Drawing on the same rich vein of modern family life mined in PACKED TO THE RAFTERS, the idyllic life of two empty nesters is shattered when all three of their adult children suddenly return home to stay - indefinitely.
A tender and tangled tale of family that will make you laugh and cry - and want to phone home ... ' takes on the age-old topic of parents and children and their children with a fresh perspective, a canny understanding of human emotion, and the absolute best dialogue I have ever read.' ELIN HILDERBRAND, author of tHE ISLAND. the idyllic life of empty nesters Ginny and William Owens is shattered when all three of their adult children suddenly return home to stay - indefinitely. First, eldest daughter Lillian arrives with her two young children in tow, her once happy marriage in tatters. Next comes younger brother Stephen and his fiercely ambitious, BlackBerry-addicted and very pregnant wife Jane, who is forced to extend a grudging weekend visit into a month's bed rest after an emergency dash to the local hospital. When their youngest, Rachel, appears, fleeing her difficult life in New York, Ginny and William find their once peaceful home transformed into the chaos of their child rearing days. Only this time around, their children are facing adult problems.At summer's end, when a mother is faced with her worst fear, each one has learned their own lesson in love and loyalty, and what really matters.And the old adage, once a parent, always a parent, has never rung so true.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An empty nest fills back up with alarming speed in Moore's promising debut. Five years have passed since the last of their kids have left home, and Ginny and William Owens have settled into a comfortable rhythm at home in Burlington, Vt., that's unexpectedly disrupted. Their exhausted and defeated daughter, Lillian, shows up with three-year-old Olivia, three-month-old Philip, and without her husband. Within days, Lillian's brother, Stephen, and his pregnant wife, Jane, arrive for an unannounced visit that will turn into a summer-long stay. Daughter Rachel, still working in New York, is teetering on the edge of financial and emotional disaster, and will also end up in Burlington in short order. Moore finds a crisp narrative in the morass of an overpacked household, and she keeps the proceedings moving with an assurance and outlook reminiscent of Laurie Colwin, evoking emotional universals with the simplest of observations, as in "the peace you feel when you are awake in a house where children are sleeping."
