When We Were Bad

By all outward appearances, the Rubins are the perfect family: brilliant, successful, enviably close-knit. Then an event of great joy and celebration — the marriage of the eldest son — urns to chaos when the groom jilts his bride and runs off with a married woman. It’s a shock to everyone in their small Jewish community, most of all to matriarch Claudia, a successful rabbi. In the wake of this one defiant act, the floodgates to a ruinous wave of gossip are opened, and the secrets that the Rubins have been keeping from one another begin to spill forth. All four adult Rubin children and their parents ultimately must come to terms with their own inner desires and identities. When We Were Bad gives a warm, poignant, and honest portrayal of a family in crisis, in love, in denial, and, ultimately, in luck.
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"When We Were Bad is a bloody good read." - Sarah Gold in Notes from the Bookroom, PublishersWeekly.com

"[Mendelson] is a keen observer … she deftly blends humor and pathos in this portrayal of a family in crisis."

Booklist, ALA

"A witty assassination of North London Jewish matriarchy by an award-winning British novelist [with] a wicked but merciful intelligence." Kirkus Reviews

"[An] immensely funny and affecting third novel ... an elegant comedy of longing and survival." Los Angeles Times

"A funny, smart, and delightfully ambivalent novel about surviving the people who love us most." - Montreal Gazette

"Like the best fiction, it is universal ... American readers will undoubtedly recognize their own familial and communal lives." - The Forward

"Quite superlative." - The Scotsman

"As intelligent as it is funny … brilliant." Observer

"A dazzling portrait of a family in crisis ... watchful, alert to details and insightful." Guardian

"So pleasurable …a consummate novelistic accomplishment." - The London Times

“This is a novel to devour in one fell swoop.” - Fay Weldon

"Fast-paced and engaging … brilliant … touching and true" - Financial Times

"Assured, inventive and entertaining … brilliantly climactic … will have a universal appeal." Sunday Telegraph

"Secret thoughts and unnameable hangups are teased out in glowing, metaphorical and often very funny prose." Times Literary Supplement