Edie Richter is Not Alone
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“Oh how I love this book. I finished Edie Richter Is Not Alone in one sitting, then reread it immediately. Hilariously heartbreakingly honest on every page, Rebecca Handler’s novel is that rare thing: a perfect book." —Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less
Funny, acerbic Edie Richter is moving with her husband from San Francisco to Perth, Australia. She leaves behind a sister and mother still mourning the recent death of her father. Before the move, Edie and her husband were content, if socially awkward―given her disinclination for small talk.
In Perth, Edie finds herself in a remarkably isolated yet verdant corner of the world, but Edie has a secret: she committed an unthinkable act that she can barely admit to herself. In some ways, the landscape mirrors her own complicated inner life, and rather than escaping her past, Edie is increasingly forced to confront what she's done. Everybody, from the wildlife to her new neighbors, is keen to engage, and Edie does her best to start fresh. But her relationship with her husband is fraying, and the beautiful memories of her father are heartbreaking, and impossible to stop. Something, in the end, has to give.
Written in clean spare prose that is nevertheless brimming with the richness and wry humor of the protagonist's observations and idiosyncrasies, Edie Richter is Not Alone is Rebecca Handler’s debut novel. It is both deeply shocking and entirely quotidian: a story about a woman's visceral confrontation with the fundamental meaning of humanity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Handler's affecting and darkly funny debut explores the impact of euthanasia on a family. Edie Richter and her husband, Oren, move from Boston to Edie's hometown of San Francisco so Edie can be near her father, who has Alzheimer's. After he stops eating, Edie, without telling her mother or sister, suffocates him. After the funeral, Edie and Oren relocate to Perth, Australia, where Oren's employer has transferred him. With only occasional freelance work to keep her busy, Edie meanders through her new environment, learning to drive on the left side, hilariously failing to befriend her neighbor, listening to possums fight on her rooftop, and admiring Aboriginal cave art. But she cannot shake the final night she spent with her father, slowly spiraling with her secret as Handler injects breathlessness into each desperate sentence. Edie's increasingly unpredictable behavior reaches its crescendo with a heartbreaking climax, and along the way, the author explores not merely Edie's guilt, but the complicated feelings over her loss. This quick, engrossing novel brings laughter and tears.
