Leaving Brooklyn: A Novel

Finalilst of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

A “stunning” (The New York Times Book Review) coming-of-age novel about a teenage girl in 1950s Brooklyn whose wandering eye gives her a unique, fragmented perspective on the world

An injury at birth left Audrey with a wandering eye. Though flawed, the bad eye functions well enough to permit her an idiosyncratic view of the world, one she welcomes in the stifling postwar Brooklyn of the 1950s. During a journey to Manhattan to see a doctor about her sight, she begins to explore the sexual rites of adulthood. But can her romance last? In this beautifully observed novel, Lynne Sharon Schwartz raises themes of innocence and escape while illuminating the rich inner life of a singular girl.