We Are the Brennans
A Novel
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3.9 • 37 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
**INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**
In the vein of Mary Beth Keane’s Ask Again, Yes and Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's The Nest, Tracey Lange’s We Are the Brennans explores the staying power of shame—and the redemptive power of love—in an Irish Catholic family torn apart by secrets.
When twenty-nine-year-old Sunday Brennan wakes up in a Los Angeles hospital, bruised and battered after a drunk driving accident she caused, she swallows her pride and goes home to her family in New York. But it’s not easy. She deserted them all—and her high school sweetheart—five years before with little explanation, and they've got questions.
Sunday is determined to rebuild her life back on the east coast, even if it does mean tiptoeing around resentful brothers and an ex-fiancé. The longer she stays, however, the more she realizes they need her just as much as she needs them. When a dangerous man from her past brings her family’s pub business to the brink of financial ruin, the only way to protect them is to upend all their secrets—secrets that have damaged the family for generations and will threaten everything they know about their lives. In the aftermath, the Brennan family is forced to confront painful mistakes—and ultimately find a way forward, together.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Tracey Lange’s insightful debut novel explores the fascinating tensions that can upend even the closest family. Long estranged from her close-knit Irish Catholic family, 29-year-old Sunday Brennan is forced to move back in with her parents in the fictional town of West Manor, New York, after a drunk-driving accident in California. The clan’s black sheep quickly learns that her three brothers—and the high-school sweetheart she left behind—are grappling with major financial, medical, legal, and romantic problems of their own. Lange’s realistic, slice-of-life writing style makes this sprawling family’s complex web of dysfunction feel alternately hilarious and deeply uncomfortable. We Are the Brennans is a thoughtful rumination on how family relationships survive even in the messiest of times. By the time it was halfway over, we were already casting the movie version in our heads.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An errant daughter returns to the fold of her Irish Catholic family in Lange's accomplished debut. Sunday Brennan shocked her closely-knit West Manor, N.Y., family when she left for Southern California five years earlier, and devastated her fiancé, Kale. When her oldest brother, Denny, owner of the family's pub, is notified that Sunday nearly killed herself while driving drunk, he reliably fills his role as anchor to his three siblings and his frail father, Mickey. Denny has his own issues, including a recent separation from his wife, who has taken their young daughter with her. When Sunday returns, her homecoming is tinged with resentment, regret, and buried passion for Kale, who has since gotten married, become a father, and partnered with Denny on a new pub. To open it, Denny's taken a risky loan from "Belfast Billy," a guy the Brennans grew up with who works on the pub reno crew. The untrustworthy Billy's dicey role in the pub's future dovetails with secrets involving Mickey's past and Billy's relationship to the family; all this culminates in the revelation of the reason Sunday fled. Lange's narrative perspectives are keenly realized, and she keeps all of the Brennans sizzling with humanity while they grapple with familial loyalty. Fans of intense family dramas are in for a treat.
Customer Reviews
Gripping Family Drama
Family drama alert 🚨If you love to immersive yourself into other people’s drama then this is the book for you 👀
We Are The Brennans, follows who else, the Brennans! This complicated Irish-American family lives in New York state. Is there ever not a complicated Irish-American family 😂
Here’s the cast of characters:
👨🦳 Mickey - The patriarch who seemed to run the town back in his day. He wasn’t always the best family man, which you will uncover 😬
👩🏻 Sunday - The only daughter who seriously held down the fort when her mom turned ill. 5 years ago she suddenly left for California. Now she’s back and must confront her family and Kale, her fiance, who she left behind.
🧔🏻♂️ Denny - The eldest brother who has a bar with surrogate Brennan, Kale. They are experiencing financial issues which leads to Denny making a deal with the town devil, unbeknownst to him.
👱♂️ Kale - After Sunday left, Kale marries Vivenne and had a son. When Sunday returns he wants answers to why she left and broke his heart.
👨🏻 Jackie - The second brother who knows the real reason why Sunday left and is ready to talk.
🧔🏻 Shane - The youngest brother who is intellectually disabled. His mother was never close with him so Sunday took on the responsibility.
The book alternates POVs between the various Brennan family members but Lange swaps out Shane’s POV for Kales. I think she should have included Shane as well.
Even though there are a lot of characters to get straight in the beginning, you instantly fall in love with this family and hope they succeed. This is a drama first so don’t expect a plot driven page turner. You turn the pages because you really want to see how the family interacts.
There is a murder in the book, but it isn’t a whodunnit. If I was adapting this to screen I would have placed it upfront and have had each Brennan + Kale as a suspect and slowly reveal each of their backstories in each episode. The book overall has a Mare of Easttown vibe to it.