{"product_id":"this-is-not-about-us-isbn-9780593447840","title":"This Is Not About Us","description":"\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A kaleidoscopic portrait of a modern American family—steadfast, complicated, begrudging, and loving—from the bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eIsola\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wise, witty . . . a deliciously readable book [about] the delicate minutiae of family life, played beautifully, boldly, brightly in a major key.”—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review \u003c\/i\u003e(Editors’ Choice)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e “Goodman’s mature and deftly written book suggests that, in family as in art, there is no such thing as uncomplicated happiness.”\u003ci\u003e—The Wall Street Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003eWas this just a brief skirmish, or the beginning of a thirty-year feud? In the Rubinstein family, it could go either way.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eWhen their beloved sister passes away, Sylvia and Helen Rubinstein are unmoored. A misunderstanding about apple cake turns into a decade of stubborn silence. Busy with their own lives—divorces, dating, career setbacks, college applications, bat mitzvahs and ballet recitals—their children do not want to get involved. As for their grandchildren? Impossible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith \u003ci\u003eThis Is Not About Us,\u003c\/i\u003e master storyteller Allegra Goodman—whose prior collection was heralded as “one of the most astute and engaging books about American family life” (\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e)—returns to the form and subject that endeared her to legions of readers. Sharply observed and laced with humor, \u003ci\u003eThis Is Not About Us\u003c\/i\u003e is a story of growing up and growing old, the weight of parental expectations, and the complex connection between sisters—a big-hearted book about the love that binds a family across generations.\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“An all-too-real portrait of a loveable, complicated family’s drama.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—People\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In this vibrant collection of linked stories . . . Allegra Goodman dissects the foibles and fantasies of her cast, from the three founding sisters to their offspring and offspring’s offspring.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Allegra Goodman’s new novel is her crowning glory (so far). \u003ci\u003eThis is Not About Us\u003c\/i\u003e delivers a funny and moving Jewish family saga.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—The Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Goodman overlaps characters and storylines, repeatedly, from different perspectives and the reader is treated to experiencing the family as a symphony, not necessarily a harmonious arrangement, but satisfying all the same as an excellent read.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Association of Jewish Libraries Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The arbiter of Jewish American family \u003ci\u003etsuris\u003c\/i\u003e . . . Goodman has been wowing readers since her undergraduate days at Harvard, in the late 1980s.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eHadassah Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An absorb­ing, endear­ing, and inti­mate new work of linked fiction . . . Through this mas­ter­ful­ly woven mosa­ic . . . a relat­able por­trait of an Amer­i­can Jew­ish fam­i­ly with all its atten­dant mishe­gas takes shape.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Jewish Book Council \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This is a volume that builds and surprises on many fronts, the cacophony of love and discontent reifying into filigreed depictions of the familial ties that bind.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Vogue\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An entertaining ride—poignant and funny by turns. Goodman, always talented, is now a virtuoso, limber and graceful. She handles her sprawling cast with a sure, light touch, and her bantering dialogue is never trivial or canned.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—The Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThis Is Not About Us\u003c\/i\u003e is my favorite kind of read—it’s not a novel, it’s not a short story collection, it’s a book of linked stories that together add up to a big, messy, richly textured modern family drama. The characters can feel unnervingly relatable, for me at least, in that modern Jewish American way that they nag and worry, obsess and adore, cook and bake and gather.”\u003cb\u003e—Jenny Rosenstrach,\u003ci\u003e Three Things Substack\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Goodman’s insight into the intimate machinations of a domestic life is absolutely perfect.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Literary Hub\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Goodman delivers a bighearted linked story collection about a family’s travails. . . . In their messiness and constant striving for harmony, the Rubensteins are wholly relatable.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“A beautiful story of generations of a complicated family.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Town \u0026amp; Country\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Goodman offers an unsparingly frank, wryly funny take on a multigenerational American family. Like an exquisitely baked apple cake, Goodman’s delicious and deeply perceptive novel is something to savor.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Astute, incisive, and soulfully witty, Goodman circulates among her irresistible characters to that each intriguing point of view reveals another facet of their tumultuous family dynamic.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist, \u003c\/i\u003estarred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“A memorable, multifaceted portrait of a family’s highs and lows.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBook Page\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eAllegra Goodman\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of seven novels, including the national bestseller \u003ci\u003eIsola\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a Reese’s Book Club pick; two short story collections; and a novel for young readers. Her fiction has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker \u003c\/i\u003eand elsewhere, and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.\u003cb\u003eChapter 1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eApple Cake\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer sisters flinched because she was the youngest, but she looked so old. Jeanne was just seventy-four, and no one ever thought . . . ​They didn’t speak of it. They would not allow themselves, but Helen was eighty, Sylvia seventy-eight. They’d married first, been mothers first. They were older. They should have been frailer. How could Jeanne be first to go?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the Brooklyn house, their baby lay propped up on pillows. Jeanne, who had celebrated her first birthday in eyelet lace, a slice of cake on the tray of her high chair, and her sisters on either side. Their living doll with her blond curls and round blue eyes. In the mountains, in Kaaterskill, they’d pulled her in their wagon over grass bumpy with apples from the apple tree. Later, when the family moved to Boston and the Brookline house, Helen and Sylvia had walked their little sister to school. Now it was dreadful to approach her—hair just wisps, voice nearly gone, her cough breaking every sentence. Horror, pity, shame. Jeanne’s older sisters felt all that at once, to see her now and to remember her as she had been. They were sorry and they were glad to feel so alive, steps firm in their low-heeled shoes. Their own bodies sound, rejoicing with each breath. What a terrible thing to say! They would never admit it. Their own strength, their good fortune, and their guilt—they could never put it into words. No one should!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“How are you, darling?” Helen asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeanne didn’t answer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Did you see the orchid Richard sent?” Sylvia turned a tall white orchid toward Jeanne’s chair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeanne looked briefly at her nephew’s gift. There were so many flowers. Blossoms filled the first-floor music studio where Jeanne had to live because she couldn’t take the stairs. The orchid from Richard, the sunflowers from her daughter-in-law, Melanie, the roses from the Auerbachs next door. Wherever she looked, she saw arrangements. The piano tuner had sent a basket of mums, which were losing petals, shedding everywhere. The cards said, “All our love,” and “Thinking of you,” and even “Healing light.” This from her niece Wendy, the music therapist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Look how beautiful they are.” Sylvia meant, Do you see how much everybody cares for you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeanne made a face. The flowers depressed her, especially those already wilting. When she looked at the mums, she felt she wasn’t dying fast enough.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer sisters sat chattering about the heat, the traffic, and the rain. They were afraid to leave her alone—although she had lived by herself for years, a widow. She lived alone because she liked it. Her late husband had been difficult, to say the least.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAccording to her sons, Jeanne’s Tudor home was much too big. According to Phoebe, her twenty-year-old granddaughter, Jeanne’s house wasted energy. For years, everybody had been telling Jeanne to move. Now nobody mentioned it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese were the privileges of hospice. You didn’t have to blow insulation into your walls. No one suggested assisted living, or criticized your carbon footprint, which would disappear entirely in weeks, or even days. On the other hand, everyone came to see you and confide in you. Jeanne didn’t believe in God or any kind of afterlife, but lung cancer made believers of her family, so that she, who despised superstition, became touchstone and talisman for the rest of them. Her sisters were always pressing her cold hands.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHelen told Jeanne, “Pam and Wendy are coming up this weekend.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeanne nodded.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Richard’s coming too,” said Sylvia. Her only child was having a terrible time, switching jobs, divorcing, and she felt he deserved credit for dropping everything to see his aunt. Pam was coming up from Providence, and Wendy lived in Brooklyn, but Richard was driving all the way from Philly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeanne closed her eyes and listened to her sisters say she’s tired. She’s exhausted. She heard them echo and repeat each other. She has to rest. Yes, she has to rest. She was looking at the sun, red through her closed eyelids.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat autumn red felt good, but dark was better, because everybody left except for Shawn, the night nurse. Then Jeanne lay awake in her rented hospital bed and listened to symphonies and choral rhapsodies, quartets, concertos on WCRB, Boston’s Classical Radio. When she heard a solo violin, her fingers curled reflexively; her left hand knew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer sons had pushed away her music stands and moved the piano to make room for Shawn, now dozing in his straight-backed chair. Jeanne imagined he had another job during the day, and she saw that he was trying to study as well. He was always reading a textbook, but he never got far. Just before dawn, the book slipped off his lap onto the floor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShawn started up and saw Jeanne staring at him from her bed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, ma’am.” He bent down for the book.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe said, “You rest.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No, I’m here if you need something.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sleep.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis eyes widened. There was no way he was going back to sleep. He’d lose his job.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’ll let you know if anything happens,” Jeanne said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer sons and their wives came to see her every afternoon. First Steve and Andrea would sit by her side. Andrea showed videos on her phone of their huge boys, born just eighteen months apart, lion cubs who played high school soccer. They were coming to see Jeanne right after practice. Andrea was going to drive them straight from the field, cleats and all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNext came Dan and Melanie. They had just the one daughter, Phoebe. Melanie had gained fifty pounds when she was pregnant. She never had another child, and she never lost the weight. “Phoebe sends her love,” said Melanie.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDan explained, “She wants to be here, but she won’t fly.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeanne tried to picture her ecological granddaughter biking from Ann Arbor. She couldn’t help laughing as she imagined Phoebe’s long blond hair streaming out from under her helmet. Jeanne’s breath came short and quick. For a few moments she couldn’t breathe at all, and then she couldn’t see. With help from her nurse, Lorraine, Jeanne sat up, and wiped tears from her eyes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What’s so funny?” asked Dan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMelanie said, “She wants to study eco-poetry.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Stop!” said Jeanne because she was laughing again, and her lungs couldn’t take it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDan and Melanie looked crushed, and Jeanne felt sorry for them—but why did everyone expect her to be so concerned?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIllness did not bring out the angel in her. At first she had appreciated visitors, but as she lingered on, they didn’t leave. Her sisters kept bringing in their middle-aged children—for what? Goodbyes? Advice? Some final blessing? Sylvia begged, “Tell Richard to stop smoking!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOh really, Jeanne thought. That’s what I am. Exhibit A. She studied her ruddy nephew. His wife had just won custody of the children and the dog. “I enjoyed smoking,” said Jeanne. “Your mother did too.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSylvia shrank back as though Jeanne had struck her, but she said nothing. It was too late, apparently, to retaliate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeanne’s sons returned, and they looked terrible, both of them. Dan wore wire-rimmed glasses. He was thick in the middle, and he had hardly any hair. It amused and saddened Jeanne to see him look so much like his late father. As for Steve, he had a bad back, so he had to walk around the room. He made Jeanne dizzy, pacing up and down.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer daughters-in-law got emotional—especially Melanie, herself a doctor. Please, thought Jeanne. I lost both my parents by the time I was your age.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe pretended to sleep, and then she really did drop off. When she woke, her sisters hovered over her. Some of us have overstayed our welcome, Jeanne thought—and then, with sudden shock—no—I’m the one. That would be me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSardonic as she was, husk that she’d become, she shuddered to disappear, to lose consciousness and irony, her music, her unrenovated house, her sun. Cancer had consumed her body; drugs clouded her mind. Even so, Jeanne held on. Barely eating, scarcely speaking, Jeanne endured. Her nieces and her nephew sat with her. Wendy came to sing and strum her battered guitar. Jeanne’s soccer-playing grandsons arrived. Zach cracked his knuckles. Nate jiggled his right leg. The boys were all ears and feet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe hospice nurses said that Jeanne would drift away in just a day or two, but four days passed, and then a fifth. It was awkward, because her sons had to take off work, and her grandchildren could only miss so many days of school. Should they stay, or should they go? Did it make sense to return home and then come right back for the funeral?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHelen said, “We need a plan.” Oldest and bossiest, she told Jeanne, “We need to know your wishes.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“To get well,” Jeanne said immediately.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLater in the hall, Sylvia turned on Helen. “How could you speak to her like that?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHelen drew herself up. “Well, we can’t ask her what she wants when she is gone!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSylvia began to cry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Don’t get hysterical,” snapped Helen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m not hysterical. I have feelings. Be considerate.”Author of Isola","brand":"The Dial Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233777791205,"sku":"NP9780593447840","price":29.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593447840.jpg?v=1767742492","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/this-is-not-about-us-isbn-9780593447840","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}