Same As It Ever Was
The immersive and joyful new novel from the author of Reese’s Bookclub pick The Most Fun We Ever Had
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
The author of The Most Fun We Ever Had returns with a brilliantly observed family drama, in which a long marriage faces imminent derailment from events both past and present
'I finished this wonderful book in floods of tears. What a joy to let a writer of such talent suffuse us with a life's worth of humour and pain, affection and mess' Jessie Burton
'Witty and insightful. A powerful exploration of marriage, motherhood and self' Bonnie Garmus
'One of those big, grown-up existential novels about parenthood and marriage and teenagers and friendship and family life . . . Both easy reading and profound at the same time, all of it cleverly brushed with wit and humour' Matt Haig
At fifty-seven, Julia Ames has found herself with an improbably lovely life. Despite her inclination towards self-sabotage, she has a husband she loves, two happy children and a quiet, contented existence in the suburbs.
But, out of the blue, things begin to change.
Her always well-behaved son is acting strangely. Her beloved but belligerent teenage daughter is about to depart for college.
And, in the local grocery store, Julia encounters a woman she hasn't seen for twenty years - a woman whose friendship was once both her lifeline and, very nearly, her downfall.
All of a sudden, Julia's peaceful family setup and her long, affection-filled marriage face imminent derailment from events both past and present.
The author of The Most Fun We Ever Had returns with another brilliantly observed family drama, which examines the complete and complicated trajectory of one woman's life and asks what it takes to make - and to not break - a family.
'We are treated to our protagonist's complicated and revelatory inner life. I loved it' Eva Wiseman, Observer
'It was such a pleasure to bury myself in this book. It moved and surprised me' Clare Chambers
'Infidelity, dysfunction, secrets - this family novel delivers. Lombardo refashions domestic drama into something rich and strange, with echoes of Lorrie Moore's sardonic humour and Jonathan Franzen's dissection of class' New York Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lombardo (The Most Fun We Ever Had) returns with the pitch-perfect tale of a complicated friendship and the fallout from an extramarital affair. Julia Ames, 57, is a married mother of two living in a Chicago suburb. While grocery shopping for her husband's 60th birthday dinner, she encounters an older woman named Helen Russo, one of the "small handful of people whom she has truly hoped to never encounter again." Julia first met Helen 20 years earlier in the botanic garden where she used to take her first child, Ben, when he was three. Back then, in her "pre-Helen energy," Julia was a "hollow-eyed, socially inept young mom" who cried easily. Helen, a wealthy retired attorney and mother of five, took Julia and Ben under her wing, welcoming them into her charmingly messy "Capital-H Home," where people were cheerfully discerning about wine and casually referenced their distinguished forebears. Julia, who came from modest means and was estranged from her mother, was enchanted. Lombardo effortlessly flits from Julia's present-day party preparations and other family occasions—Ben's wedding, her daughter's departure for college—to flashbacks of the women's burgeoning friendship, slowly building to the reason for its dissolution two years after it began: Julia's affair with Helen's 29-year-old son, Nathaniel, who had the "biceps of a Renaissance sculpture." Lombardo is compulsively readable and consistently funny, and it's impossible to look away as Julia continues to self-sabotage. This domestic drama hits all the right notes.
Customer Reviews
Extraordinary
Breathtakingly real and beautifully written