BOOKS — JAMI ATTENBERG

Publishes September 24, 2004. Pre-order through Books are Magic!
A Most Anticipated Book from: New York Times * People* Associated Press * Time * Saturday Evening Post * Real Simple * Book Bub * Alta
“A moving epic about the endurance of family love.” — Real Simple
“[A] wry novel about love, loss, and inherited trauma.” — Time
“[A] dramatic, page-turning novel.” — People
“I loved leaping through time with the four Cohen women—Frieda, Nancy, Shelly, and Jess. Each woman is intelligent and self-sabotaging—the way we all can be—and they love each other fiercely, often from a careful distance. Attenberg’s writing is sharp and incisive—it’s a pleasure to watch the patterns she created unfold over forty years of these women’s lives.” — Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful and Dear Edward
"Entertaining and empathetic. . . . Attenberg knows how to imperil her characters and love them at the same time. . . . Readers will happily sit with these women through it all.” — Booklist (starred review)
“Attenberg knows where to shine a spotlight to reveal characters' personalities and dynamics . . . . [Her] characters are as loveable as they are maddening, and the combination of choices and luck makes the novel's events feel as random—and genuine—as real life. . . . [A] masterful dysfunctional family story.” — Shelf Awareness
“The vicissitudes of [Attenberg’s] characters are undeniably absorbing.” — Kirkus Reviews
"When their father passes, the Cohen sisters and their mother seem rudderless and strike out in opposite directions. Spanning 40 years, this moving saga asks if love can heal brokenness." — Saturday Evening Post
“Attenberg’s nuanced latest . . . . is carried along by deliciously realistic descriptions of the Cohens’ complex relationships. It’s an admirable portrait of a distinctly unhappy family.” — Publishers Weekly
“Glimmers of humor lift a narrative that time-hops and head-hops, as the Cohen women come together and fall apart, squabble and make up. . . . Attenberg’s fans will enjoy this novel, as will those who like sharply observed dysfunctional mother-daughter stories.” — Library Journal
From *New York Times* bestselling author Jami Attenberg comes a dazzling novel of family, following a troubled mother and her two daughters over forty years and through a swiftly changing American landscape as they seek lives they can fully claim as their own.
The women of the Cohen family are in crisis. Triggered by the death of their patriarch, Rudy, the glue that held them all together, everyone’s lives soon take a dramatic turn.
Shelly, the younger of the two Cohen sisters, runs off to the West Coast to immerse herself in the emerging (and lucrative) world of technology. Her sister, Nancy, gets married at the age of twenty-one to a traveling salesman with a shadowy lifestyle, while their mother, Frieda, hurls herself into a boozy, troubled existence in Miami, trying to forget the past even as it haunts her.
But they each learn in different ways that running from the past can’t save you—and then must make life-altering decisions about what they want their family to be and what they need to move forward.
Beginning in the 1970s and spanning forty years, *A Reason to See You Again* takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic journey through motherhood, the American workforce, the tech industry, the self-help movement, inherited trauma, the ever-evolving ways we communicate with one another, and the many unexpected forms that love can take.
“I loved leaping through time with the four Cohen women—Frieda, Nancy, Shelly, and Jess. Each woman is intelligent and self-sabotaging—the way we all can be—and they love each other fiercely, often from a careful distance. Attenberg’s writing is sharp and incisive—it’s a pleasure to watch the patterns she created unfold over forty years of these women’s lives.” — Ann Napolitano, author of *Hello Beautiful* and *Dear Edward*

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A *USA TODAY* Bestseller
A *Washington Post* Bestseller

Inspired by Jami Attenberg’s wildly popular literary movement #1000WordsofSummer, this writer’s guide features encouraging essays on creativity, productivity, and writing from acclaimed authors including Roxane Gay, Lauren Groff, Celeste Ng, Meg Wolitzer, and Carmen Maria Machado.

In 2018, novelist Jami Attenberg, faced with a looming deadline, needed writing inspiration. Using a bootcamp model, she and a friend set out to write one thousand words daily for two weeks straight. They opened this practice to Attenberg’s online community and soon hundreds then thousands of people started using the #1000WordsofSummer hashtag to track their work and support one another. What began as a simple challenge between two friends has become a literary movement—write 1,000 words per day without judgment, or bias, or concerns about writer’s block, and see what comes of it.

1000 Words is the book-length extension of this movement. It is about becoming—and staying—motivated, discovering yourself and your creative desires, and approaching your craft from a new direction. It features advice from more than fifty well-known writers, including New York Times bestsellers, Pulitzer Prize winners, and stars of the literary world. Framing these letters are words of wisdom and encouragement, plus specific strategies, from Attenberg on how to carve out a creative path for yourself all year round.

Paired with vibrant word art illustrations, 1000 Words is an accessible and motivational craft book that allows you to open any page and get a quick and fulfilling hit of inspiration.

Featuring Roxane Gay, Bryan Washington, Susan Orlean, Maris Kreizman, Sara Novic, Rumaan Alam, Lauren Oyler, Emma Straub, Christopher Gonzales, Benjamin Percy, Mira Jacob, Laura van den Berg, Carmen Maria Machado, Courtney Sullivan, Rebecca Carroll, Ada Limon, R.O. Kwon, Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, Elissa Washuta, Alexander Chee, Maggie Shipstead, Deesha Philyaw, Jasmine Guillory, Kristen Arnett, Attica Locke, Megan Abbott, Min Jin Lee, Lauren Groff, Andrew Sean Greer, Camille Dungy, Megan Giddings, Isaac Fitsgerald, Hannah Tinti, Michael H. Weber, Celeste Ng, Elizabeth McCracken, Will Leitch, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Morgan Parker, Kiese Laymon, Melissa Febos, Alissa Nutting, Liz Moore, Laila Lalami, Megan Mayhew Berman, Rebecca Makkai, Meg Wolitzer, Mychal Denzel Smith, Josh Gondelman, and Dantiel W. Moniz.

In this brilliant, fierce, and funny memoir of transformation, Jami Attenberg—described as a “master of modern fiction” (Entertainment Weekly) and the “poet laureate of difficult families” (Kirkus Reviews)—reveals the defining moments that pushed her to create a life, and voice, she could claim for herself. What does it take to devote oneself to art? What does it mean to own one’s ideas? What does the world look like for a woman moving solo through it?

As the daughter of a traveling salesman in the Midwest, Attenberg was drawn to a life on the road. Frustrated by quotidian jobs and hungry for inspiration and fresh experiences, her wanderlust led her across the country and eventually on travels around the globe. Through it all she grapples with questions of mortality, otherworldliness, and what we leave behind.

It is during these adventures that she begins to reflect on the experiences of her youth—the trauma, the challenges, the risks she has taken. Driving across America by herself on self-funded book tours, sometimes crashing on couches when she was broke, she keeps writing: in researching articles for magazines, jotting down ideas for novels, and refining her craft, she grows as an artist and increasingly learns to trust her gut and, ultimately, herself.

Exploring themes of friendship, independence, class, and drive, I Came All This Way to Meet You is an inspiring story of finding one’s way home—emotionally, artistically, and physically—and an examination of art and individuality that will resonate with anyone determined to listen to their own creative calling.

“Jami Attenberg is undoubtedly a writer's writer and a phenomenal talent. I Came All This Way To Meet You showcases all the very best of her gifts, bringing intimacy to the forefront of the work, asking the reader to stay close, pay attention, to learn. There is so much beauty in her craft; a tenderness present even on the sentence level. The book is an embrace. It is a love letter to work and to friendship. I Came All This Way To Meet You is a compelling literary treasure and Attenberg is a real wonder.” -- Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things and With Teeth

“I Came All This Way To Meet You is a love story; it shows us a way to love art and our lives and our souls...It’s Eat Pray Love for Nick Cave fans." -- Emily Flake, New Yorker cartoonist and author of That Was Awkward

"A wise and witty glimpse behind the travels and travails of one of our most beloved contemporary novelists. I Came All This Way To Meet You brims with humor, humility, pathos, and intelligence. I gulped down every page and finished sated, as if I'd spent a long weekend with a dear friend." -- Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood

"I Came All This Way to Meet You—which features the shining prose that characterizes Attenberg's fiction, while allowing us a glimpse behind the curtain of her process and her personal history—is one of the most artistically invigorating books I've read in years. It made me want to sit down and write." -- Liz Moore, author of Long Bright River

“This stunning work explores home not solely as geographic place but also as a mobile metaphor for the relationships we consistently run to and away from. Jami Attenberg cements her place as one of our greatest, most agile writers.”
-- Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy and Long Division

“A remarkable memoir I’ll be re-reading forever.” -- Ashley C. Ford, author of Somebody's Daughter

On the Best of Fall lists from People, Vogue, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, New York, Observer, Bust, Nylon, New York Post, Pop Sugar and more.

“Prickly and unsentimental, but never quite hopeless, Attenberg poet laureate of difficult families, captures the relentlessly lonely beauty of being alive.”
—Kirkus, starred review

“Dazzling . . . A delectable family saga.”
—Publisher’s Weekly, starred review

“An ambitious and utterly delectable novel about families and their secrets that opens up, pleasurably, like a set of nesting dolls."

—Kelly Link, author of Get In Trouble

“Jami Attenberg's work is so deeply attuned to humans and our imperfect attempts to love each other. All This Could Be Yours is populated by Attenberg's pitch-perfect characters; flawed, recognizable people dealing with big topics--death, family, sex, love--and Attenberg handles it all with an expert touch and a keen sense of what, despite all the sadness and secrets, keeps people connected, striving for moments of beauty and tenderness in a dark world.”
—Emma Cline, author of The Girls

“Set against the vivid backdrop of New Orleans, Jami Attenberg’s extraordinary new novel All This Could Be Yours is a deep dive into fractured family dynamics. In alternating voices, Attenberg expertly weaves together a chorus of love, betrayal and inheritance, each chapter a prism turned, revealing a new spectrum of secrets. Interspersed are gorgeous excavations into fleeting moments with strangers—the checkout clerks and ferry conductors passing through our lives—connecting this singular family into the larger web of life, where everyone is worthy of understanding and no one is without a soul.”
—Hannah Tinti, author of The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley

“Attenberg crafts families with stunning nuance and depth. She pays tribute to unseen New Orleans with a gaze on the powerful and the downtrodden. Her characters are unforgettable, their predicaments are captivating and their journeys shed light on the inner workings of America.”
—Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of A Kind of Freedom

“Jami Attenberg writes with an unflinching and generous spirit that brings to mind Grace Paley. All This Could Be Yours traces the lasting turmoil of a flawed marriage, and is another marvel of intelligence, humor, and soul.”
—Zachary Lazar, author of Vengeance and Sway

"No one understands the contradictions of the human heart and how our grace and our failures reverberate through our families better than Jami Attenberg. And no one writes about our grace and failures with humor and compassion better than her either. Also—this book’s structure is brilliant."
—Attica Locke, author of Heaven, My Home

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