What do Britney, Celine, and I have in common? Well, nothing, except that our photos all appear in this particular issue of PEOPLE Magazine where A Reunion of Ghosts is the book of the week. I’d say thanks a million, but given PEOPLE’s readership of 46.6 million, that would probably seem meager. So just a big thank you for this honor. And another heartfelt thanks for including me in an issue that does not have a Kardashian on the cover.
So happy and grateful for another starred review for REUNION, this time from Publishers Weekly:
A Reunion of Ghosts Mitchell’s triumphant second novel (The Last Day of the War) explores love, identity, and the burdens of history in coruscating, darkly comic prose. As the 20th century closes, Lady, Delph, and Vee Alter decide to kill themselves. The decision is not surprising; the middle-aged sisters embrace the chart of previous family suicides that hangs in their New York apartment as a source of “reassuring inevitability.” Departing from Alter tradition, however, they decide to leave a suicide note, intertwining their own narratives into their family’s complex history. At the heart of it is German Jew turned Lutheran Lenz Alter, who invented the chemical process that created the chlorine gas used in WWI and a predecessor to Zyklon B, used in Nazi death camps. His culpability seemed to poison the generations, as Lenz; his wife, Iris; their son, Richard; and Richard’s three daughters (one of whom is the mother of Lady, Delph, and Vee) all died by their own hands. Or so the sisters think, until a surprising visitation suggests that the family curse is not as defining as it seems. Moving nimbly through time and balancing her weightier themes with the sharply funny, fiercely unsentimental perspectives of her three protagonists—each distinct, yet also, as their name suggests, at “different stages of a single life”—Mitchell’s fictional suicide note is poignant and pulsing with life force. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME Entertainment. (Mar.)
Reviewed on 01/16/2015 |
A REUNION OF GHOSTS ‘s first review will appear in the January 15th issue of Kirkus, the venerable journal that reviews over 7,000 new books annually prior to their publication. It will also be online as of January 8. For those who can’t wait (Hi, Mom), here’s the sneak preview that my wonderful editor sent me today. It’s a coveted star review and I’m so grateful for the publication’s incredible kindness and generosity:
A REUNION OF GHOSTSAuthor: Judith Claire Mitchell
Three middle-aged sisters collaborating on a memoir that’s meant to double as their collective suicide note may not sound like a hilarious premise for a novel, but Mitchell’s masterful family saga is as funny as it is aching. Together, Lady, Vee and Delph Alter have decided that New Year’s Eve, 1999—the cusp of the new millennium—will be the day they end their lives, quietly and with as little melodrama as possible. But first, they have embarked upon writing this “whatever-it-is—this memoir, this family history, this quasi-confessional.” It will record the saga of the last four generations of Alters (theirs included). Also, it will double as their joint suicide note. (“Q: How do three sisters write a single suicide note? A: The same way a porcupine makes love: carefully.”) Suicide seems to run in the Alter family, and now it has reached the current generation: Vee, the middle sister—whose beloved husband was murdered getting lunch one day at Chock full o’Nuts—has cancer, with six months to a year left. If one sister goes, they’re all going. And so begins their project, which traces the Alter family history, starting with their maternal great-grandmother, brilliant and stifled, and great-grandfather, the German-Jewish Nobel Prize-winning chemist who invented the gas that would ultimately be used in the Nazi death chambers. “He was the sinner who doomed us all,” they write, the root of the ill-fated family tree. She died (a gun in the garden); he followed suit (morphine). With variations, the subsequent generations did the same. Moving seamlessly between the past and the present, from Germany to the Upper West Side, Mitchell’s (The Last Day of the War, 2004) dark comedy captures the agony and ecstasy (but mostly agony) with deep empathy and profound wit. For the Alters, life has been a seemingly endless series of tragedies; for us, the tragedy is that this stunning novel inevitably comes to an end.
Review Issue Date: January 15, 2015
Online Publish Date: January 8, 2015
Publisher:Harper/HarperCollins
Publication Date: March 24, 2015
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-0-06-235588-1
Category: Fiction