Same As It Ever Was
A Novel
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4.0 • 200 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NAMED A BEST BOOK BY PEOPLE AND PARADE • The New York Times bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had (“wonderfully immersive…deliciously absorbing”—NPR) returns with another brilliantly observed family drama in which the enduring, hard-won affection of a long marriage faces imminent derailment from events both past and present.
“Infidelity, dysfunction, secrets – this family novel delivers."—The New York Times • "Lombardo has such a fine eye for the weft and warp of a family’s fabric." —The Washington Post • “Witty and insightful...a powerful exploration of marriage, motherhood, and self.”–Bonnie Garmus, bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry
Same As It Ever Was showcases the consummate style, signature wit, and profound emotional intelligence that made The Most Fun We Ever Had one of the most beloved novels of the past decade. Featuring a memorably messy family and the multifaceted marriage at its heart, Lombardo’s debut was dubbed “the literary love child of Jonathan Franzen and Anne Tyler” (The Guardian) and hailed as “ambitious and brilliantly written” (Washington Post). In this remarkable follow-up—another elegant and tumultuous story in the tradition of Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patchett, and Celeste Ng—Lombardo introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters, this time by way of her singularly complicated protagonist.
Julia Ames, after a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, has found herself on the placid plateau of mid-life. But Julia has never navigated the world with the equanimity of her current privileged class. Having nearly derailed herself several times, making desperate bids for the kind of connection that always felt inaccessible to her, she finally feels, at age fifty seven, that she has a firm handle on things.
She’s unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenaged daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which threaten to draw her back into the patterns that had previously kept her on a razor’s edge.
Same As It Ever Was traverses the rocky terrain of real life, —exploring new avenues of maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the happenstantial cause-and-effect that governs us all. Delving even deeper into the nature of relationships—how they grow, change, and sometimes end—Lombardo proves herself a true and definitive cartographer of the human heart and asserts herself among the finest novelists of her generation.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Claire Lombardo shines a dazzling light on the beautiful, disorienting, and downright dramatic realities of domestic life in this clever and compelling novel. To an outsider, Julia’s life looks picture-perfect. She has two bright high school– and college-age kids, a kind and handsome husband, and a comfortable suburban existence. But when a surprise run-in with an old friend dredges up the steamy, ill-advised affair that almost destroyed her marriage, Julia’s well-manicured life is thrown for a distressing loop. Filling her novel with engaging and undeniably complex characters (like Julia’s fierce, queer, “Amazonian” teenage daughter, Alma) and chapters that switch between Julia at thirty-six and Julia at fifty-seven, Lombardo creates a brilliant sense of tension between then and now—resulting in a profound, page-turning journey through a family’s life. If you’re looking for a witty and moving tale of domestic strife, look no further than this intimate and insightful novel.
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
Absolutely lovely
This is the epitome of love, of marriage in all of its seasons, of raising kids, watching them leave the nest, the complications and dynamics of family and complexities of merging families when your children marry and being the grandparents to their children while standing by to give advice or help when they need it when raising their own kids but most of all it is about unconditionally loving your people, your partner, parents, children and friends but more importantly yourself.
One of my favorites
This beautiful story of a family as seen through the mom’s point of view. Julia, the mom, is a complicated woman who endured a difficult childhood with her own mother who had a hard time showing love. Julia is a great mom but she makes mistakes and must deal with the fallout of her choices. It’s a beautiful book about love, forgiveness, loneliness, anxiety, and how our upbringing can affect you, but not break you. You can give love even if you were not loved enough. It’s also about friendship, pity, and the power of being present to notice the beauty and grace around you.
Claire Lombardo is a master of words
I read a lot of books…it has been way too long a wait for Claire Lombardo! I love every word she writes …she is a master at capturing the complicated nuances of what we may think of as “basic family life”… it is truly amazing and I am grateful that she takes the time to share her amazing and artistic gift! And I have to look up words! So refreshing! I never wanted her books to end and I miss each family that I got to know and love in the journey through each of her first two novels. May there be many more to follow…please!