{"product_id":"the-brambles-isbn-9781400077526","title":"The Brambles","description":"This is the story of the Bramble family--Margaret, Max, and Edie--three adult siblings careening through wildly different byways of adult life. Margaret, mother of three, is about to take her ailing father into the tumult and chaos of her already overcrowded home. Edie is young and single, but struggling mightily to anchor her solitary life. Max, newly married, newly a father, is buckling under the weight of new responsibilities. Over the course of one critical season, a long hidden secret will be revealed, remaking each of them, and all they thought they knew about themselves.“Consistently perceptive, even stunning. . . . [\u003ci\u003eThe Brambles\u003c\/i\u003e] leaves you marveling . . . and looking forward to the author’s next move.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e“Minot has the uncanny gift for rendering life in all of its messy glory.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e“Minot’s prose has the brilliant quality of sharpened detail you experience when you finally get eyeglasses, and that blurred green of the trees turns out to be composed of countless distinct leaves—when the ordinary turns out to be fully extraordinary.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNewsday\u003c\/i\u003e“Pitch-perfect. . . . In remarkable prose, Minot manages what few writers can pull off: She combines a rich complex story with the voice and sensibility of a poet.” —\u003ci\u003eSt. Louis Post Dispatch\u003c\/i\u003eEliza Minot is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Tiny One\u003c\/i\u003e. She was born in Beverly, Massachusetts and now lives in New Jersey with her family.Let's keep him,\" said Florence. They were about to sign the lease.   \"He looks like he likes it here.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e          In the flowerbed, a small cement statue, two feet tall, robed,   bearded, in mid-step looks down at the rounded rim of the swimming   pool. In one hand he holds a spade, in the other a plume of kale or   chard. The house's previous occupants had left him. Or maybe the   occupants before them. A frost of green moss along an eyebrow. Part   of a finger fallen off. Coin-sized circles, charcoal gray, of lichen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Saint Fiacre,\" said Arthur. He'd recently seen an article on him in   one of the gardening magazines. \"Also known as Fiacrius, I believe.   Fiachra.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Mmm,\" said Florence. She was already tearing up some weeds in the   raised bed next to her hip.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"The patron saint of gardeners,\" said Arthur.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"And women who can't conceive,\" said Florence, bent over, uprooting   tall grasses. \"And taxi drivers.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Arthur laughed. \"Nonsense.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"And potters, tile makers . . . hemorrhoids.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Hemorrhoids get to have a saint?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"That's what one of your magazines told me,\" she said. \"I read it on   the john.\" She stood up straight. \"Do you think we could bring out a   part of that rambler rose? Plant it right here?\" She shimmied her arm   up, a move from one of her dance numbers a long time ago, to   demonstrate where. \"A trellis?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Arthur stood at the pool's edge, watching the water's surface get   spackled with light. \"I don't see why not,\" he said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Florence surveyed the place, massaged her chin with her thumb and   forefinger, playing the part of someone surveying, considering, left   behind a soul patch of dirt underneath her bottom lip. \"Can't we put   bulbs in the freezer to pretend winter's happening?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Certainly,\" said Arthur.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Those other roses,\" continued Florence, \"the sweet midget ones,   could be over there.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Dwarf. Of course,\" he said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Florence looked up to see him standing at the edge of the pool as if   he might upend it. \"Look at you,\" she said. \"You'll never step foot   in that pool.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"It's remarkably clean.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"It better be clean.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I'm not looking forward to keeping it clean.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Roy told me a young man does it for practically nothing,\" said   Florence, ambling toward the garage. \"The kids will love it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Sure they will,\" said Arthur, without irony, with true warmth,   thinking of his daughters, Edie diving in, her body coated in a shaft   of glass. Margaret with her new baby when it finally comes, bobbing   it up and down in the water the way mothers do. He could place his   son, Max, lazing in the chaise with a baseball hat on top of his   face. Arthur had a hard time believing any of them would ever make   the trip across the country to visit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Florence answered him, reading his mind. \"They'll be thrilled to come   visit us. Who doesn't like sunlight? Who doesn't like California?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Arthur raised his hand. \"Me,\" he said, pointing down to himself from   above. \"Me.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Too bad about you,\" Florence smiled.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Arthur watched his wife busying herself, familiarizing herself with   this new place, how to make it hers, placing her scent everywhere. He   watched her circle trees and look under plants, gently gathering tall   stalks like a ponytail to inspect their roots. He watched her poke   around in the garage, kicking at boxes, and peer over fences on   tiptoe, imagining things to be done, things she would do. She looked   the same as she always had, spry and young to him, trim and hearty as   she moved gracefully about her new garden. Her white hair, her   sea-glass eyes with the elfin squint lines around them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    An infomercial personality from Baltimore had bought the house they'd   lived in for the last thirty years in Merrick, New York. They   learned, after closing, that he was planning to subdivide it, build a   Tudor thing on top of the rock garden, put a tennis court and sauna   arrangement where the old lilac bushes had been. \"It's just as well,\"   Florence had said in the living room, sitting back in the old chair   covered in Indian fabric with elephants all over it. She tossed a   handful of peanuts into her mouth. \"The house as we know it is   finito.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    California. A one-story house they could practically leap over. Dry   green hills in the distance, spines of ridges lumpy like the backs of   stegosauruses, sets for Westerns, sets for M*A*S*H, scratchy-grassed   meadows that made you wonder where Reagan's ranch was, where was   Neverland. A plush gray cat looking at Arthur from underneath their   white rental car. The smell of menthol from the eucalyptus trees.   Florence with the hills behind her, a small mountain her belled-out   cape. The dusty colors flattering her tawny skin, leaping from the   page of a catalog with names like ecru, stone, sand, olive, pumice,   leaf, bone. The sunlight crackling on the pool's puckering surface   with every breeze. Arthur watching a fuzzy seedling, a starry orb,   sail from one shore to the other. Florence looking aimlessly for a   garbage can, her hands full of weeds.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Arthur smiled. \"Taxi drivers, eh?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Do you see a trash can?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Does that include limousine drivers? Shuttle vans?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"You'll have to ask the pope,\" she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"By the door, my dear. Over there.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Florence spotted it, veered with renewed purpose in its direction, a   replica of their garbage cans back home, dark green plastic with   flip-top lids from Sears.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Margaret will be in San Francisco next week,\" said Florence. \"Did I tell you?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"No, you did not.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"If we lived here, she'd come visit. See?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I'm concerned that she's too pregnant to be traveling.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Not yet.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Arthur squinted, perplexed at why Margaret's job would bring her out   of New York. \"I don't understand her job.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"You don't need to, sweetheart.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Has Edie gotten a job?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Arthur.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Yes?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Let her finish school.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Yes.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"She has a fine job waiting tables.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Yes.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"And she's tutoring those children.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Yes.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Max might start working on a movie in Los Angeles.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"You told me. Yes.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"It would be nice if he's there and we're here.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Now there's a job I thoroughly don't understand.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"That's because you've never wondered about how a movie gets made,\"   said Florence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"They get made, is all. A person films other people who act.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I'm sure plenty of producers and directors never wondered about your   job either.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    For most of his life, until his recent retirement, Arthur had been   the lead lawyer for a watchdog company that managed the recalling of   consumer goods.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I'm hungry,\" said Florence. \"Let's go to that Mexican place by the   beach again.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Wonderful,\" said Arthur. He looked at the statue of the saint, its   small hooded head looking delicately away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Now a green garden hose winds like a snake on the lawn, uncoiled,   dead, the last thing Arthur was doing when he went to sit down on the   wrought-iron chair at the glass-topped table. He sat there for some   time, wondering if he was having a heart attack, on top of everything   else, as he stared at the rear neighbor's avocado tree on the other   side of the tall stockade fence, trying to ignore the pain in his   chest and abdomen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Arthur sat still, puzzled and uncomfortable, while he mustered his   strength to get up and turn off the running water that was piling   into puddles on the drought-ridden grass. Then he made his way,   sidestepping soft-shoe, keeping his balance, through the open back   door on his way to the bedroom, not bothering or, rather, unable to   wipe his feet on the doormat on the way in, thereby tracking mulch   and wet dirt onto the cream-colored carpet. Florence would've   shrieked at him laughing--Ack! Take off those shoes! But now, alone   without her, he is concentrating pointedly on simply making it to the   bed, feeling like he'll vomit or soil his pants or pass out or all   three, where he lies crush down on the firm mattress, belly-flopped,   head askance, the cotton against his cheek a sure and familiar   comfort.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Then, dusk. All about him, circling the house, things carry on. Cars   bleat along the small streets surrounding him, heading to the Shop   and Save, heading home from the beach. Silver beads of airplanes Etch   A Sketch across the sky. Kids on bikes shout to one another,   disappear down the hill. Miniature treeless mountains stand like   upthrust chests, slope-slicing into the ocean along Route 1 where   traffic has stopped to watch a pair of whales in the channel spout   like steamships.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The sun slips, coloring the ocean with an oily orange film. It is   dusk, not day anymore, not night yet, the way life has become for   Arthur Bramble these last couple of weeks, right in between, perched   at the wait, one way or the other, which way to turn, until, finally,   there comes the simple settling--this is the way it will be   now--toward an elegant purgatory. Each day is more animal than the   next, more pared down, more unmistakably stripped of future. Each   day--but are they days? They blur like nights of heavy drinking or   the mind's eye of a child--has taken on the mysteriousness of Africa,   a velvet darkness at every periphery, what comes after we stop   living, the honor of the inevitable--here he is, grown old and   dying--what lies ahead? Out of the air it is coming to him. It blazes   in the afterglow that glimmers wildly through the trees. It whispers   through the swipes of clouds that are plastered still and scarlet   against the massive sky up above. It calls to him, yoo-hoooo, in a   voice he hasn't heard in a long, long time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In the morning from his bed he hears his nurse's car come sputtering   up the skinny driveway alongside the flattened house. He hears   her--Alice--on the other side of the window. The thwack suction slam   of a door. Through the closed muslin curtains, the shadow of her   shape is elongated, distorted, Gumby-like, an alien coming to take   him to space. He hears the back hatch squeak open, the girlish rustle   of plastic grocery bags being collected together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Arthur thinks of the stroll Alice must have just taken through Von's   Market, entering and leaving effortlessly, pain-free and regular,   passing through the automatic doors that hum open as though for   royalty, framed by cheerleader pyramids of flowers, each pot wrapped   in purple foil. He thinks fleetingly of how probably he will never go   alone through a market again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He hears Alice struggle with the back-door key, first locking it   since it was never locked, then unlocking it, then opening the door,   letting in the airy hum of the world outside.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Arthur calls to her when the door opens. \"Alice?\" He clears his   throat. \"I've been in bed since yesterday,\" he announces.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    After a moment, a stripe of sunlight falling across her chest like a   Miss America banner, Alice appears in his doorway, the weight of the   groceries pulling on her arms like a prairie girl's buckets of milk.   She looks at Arthur frankly, eyes him slowly with a half turn of her   head. Alice hardly ever smiles, let alone laughs, which gives her an   air of constant comedy since she has a fine sense of humor. Alice   sighs. \"Oh, Mr. Bramble,\" she says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"You'll be pleased to note that I've put my pajamas on   appropriately,\" Arthur points out, though he barely remembers when he   managed to do that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Alice looks Arthur over. He's not lying down all the way and he's not   sitting up all the way. He's slouched in between, one pillow pinched   under his head and another one rolled into the twirled shape of a   strudel pinned between his elbow and chest like a football. \"How do   you feel now?\" Alice asks him. She scans the room. Everything seems   to be intact. A glass of water, still full, sits on the bedside table.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Fine.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"You should've called me,\" she tells him, moving about the room. She   puts the groceries down on the cedar chest at the foot of the bed and   flings a fallen bedspread back into place. She opens the curtains and   cracks the window to let in some fresh air.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Well, but here you are,\" says Arthur, straightening himself up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"You call me, Mr. Bramble,\" she says loudly. \"That's what I'm here for.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Certainly,\" he says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Have you eaten anything?\" she asks. She picks up his glass of water,   dumps its remainder into the potted amaryllis on the dresser, and   then holds the glass daintily in front of her belly button like a   ballerina.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Yes,\" says Arthur. \"Your marvelous pot pie.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Alice frowns at him. \"I didn't leave you any pot pie,\" she says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Your marvelous pot pie,\" he says again with a nod.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I left quiche. A frittata, really.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Precisely. Your marvelous frittata.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Alice cracks one of her tiny smiles. \"I'll fix you some soup. Or   bacon and eggs?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Bacon and eggs, please.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Alice props him up better on some pillows and brings him some fresh   water. She moves about him efficiently, smacking at some pillows so   the dust flies up, swarming in the sunlight like sea monkeys. She   wipes at the bedside table, shines it up with her bare hand, and then   shakes out a blanket with a military crack.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"The most competent woman in the world,\" Arthur told his daughter   Margaret on the phone, referring to Alice, pronouncing the word   wurld, swirled up into a wet whirlpool, his ancient Boston accent   sprouted like a crocus from England centuries ago, now at the end of   its line like his family's money, an accent practically extinct. (\"I   didn't know your father was British,\" his children's friends would   say. He's not! Arthur was always the oldest father. \"Is that guy your   grandfather?\" his children's friends would ask. He's my dad!) \"A   wonderful gurl,\" Arthur said to Margaret about Alice. Can't get much   better than that, thought Margaret, unable to recall such a   compliment out of her father's mouth about anyone, including herself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Alice brings him the newspaper. \"Thank you,\" says Arthur, but he   barely gives it a try. Reading's become a sort of carnival game. The   typed words pinwheel and make him seasick.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Alice heads into the bathroom to see what needs tending to in there.   She refolds a clean towel that's slipped to the floor. Some of the   framed pictures on the wall are askew, tilted at cockeyed   angles--what went on in here? she wonders, imagining Arthur tipping   about in the dark, pawing at the walls, mussing the pictures. Alice   looks them over: His daughter Margaret in a pink bikini with her   husband, smiling in a pool somewhere, two toddlers clasped onto their   backs like barnacles. Max and Edie as teenagers, both of them smiling   on a porch, puffs of breath beside their pale faces, evergreen   garlands twined around a column near their heads. In a big silver   frame, Arthur's wife, Florence, young but not too young, glamorous in   black and white, laughing up into the air, perfect teeth, her mouth   open as though waiting for a tossed grape, in a photograph taken for   a magazine.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303397347557,"sku":"NP9781400077526","price":13.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400077526.jpg?v=1767738521","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-brambles-isbn-9781400077526","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}