A Quitter's Paradise: A Novel

ISBN: 163893052X

Author: Chang, Elysha

Condition: Used

A Michelle Obama's Reach Higher Summer Reading List Pick An NPR Critics Summer Pick A Good Morning America Pick of the Month A Good Reads Big Buzz Debut A Tertulia Staff Pick of the MonthCompelling . . . Studded with sublime wit. -New York Times Book ReviewA glorious, pondering, heartbreaking, extremely funny, very special book. -Sarah Jessica ParkerIn A Quitters Paradise, the darkly humorous debut by bold, new voice Elysha Chang, a young woman does everything she can to ignore her mothers death, even as unearthed family secrets become increasingly inextricable from her own.Eleanor is doing just fine. Yes, shes keeping secrets from her husband. Sure, she quit her PhD program and is now conducting unauthorized research on illegitimately procured mice. And, true, her mother is dead, and Eleanor has yet to go through her things. But what else is she supposed to do? What shape can grief take when you didnt understand the person youve lost?Resisting at every turn, Eleanor tumbles blindly down a path toward confronting her present. As Eleanors avoidance of her feelings results in a series of outrageous-often hilarious-choices, her actions begin to threaten all she holds most dear. Meanwhile, glimpses of Eleanors childhood and family history in Taiwan unfurl, revealing long-held secrets, and Eleanor starts to realize that she will never be able to escape her grief, or her family, despite her wildest attempts. But will she be brave enough to withstand the reckoning shes hurtling toward?At once disarmingly provocative and compulsively readable, A Quitters Paradise is an unexpectedly funny study of the beauty and contradictions of grief, family bonds, and self-knowledge, exploring the ways we unwittingly guard the secrets of our loved ones, even from ourselves.