Object Lessons

Description

From the author of Every Last One, another unmissable novel about family life It is the 1960s, in suburban New York City, and twelve-year-old Maggie Scanlan begins to sense that despite the calm surface of her peaceful life, everything is going strangely wrong. When her all-powerful grandfather is struck down by a stroke, the reverberations affect Maggie's entire family. Her normally dispassionate father breaks down, her mother becomes distant and unavailable, and matters only get worse when her cousin and her best friend start doing things to each other that leave Maggie confused about sex and terrified of sin. With all of this upheaval, how can she be sure that what she wants is even worth having?

Anna Quindlen is the author of five bestselling novels and has one the Pulitzer Prize for her New York Times column 'Public and Private'. She lives with her family in New York City.

An intelligent, highly entertaining novel laced with acute perceptions about the nature of day-to-day family life -- Anne Tyler * New York Times Book Review * The characters are quirky and vividly drawn ... The writing is lovely, and shows humour and quiet insight ... Quindlen is an intellignet and imaginative writer * Boston Globe * Elaborate and playful... Honest and deeply felt... Here is the Quindlen wit, the sharp eye for details of class and manners ... the ardent reading of domestic lives. * New York Times * Anna Quindlen's first novel is about an experience that is the same for everyone and different for us all: the time when we suddenly see our family with an outsider's eye and begin the separation that marks our growing up. * Washington Post * Quindlen is at her best writing about the dislocations of growing up, the blows a child does not see coming * Time *