Home Leave - Softcover

Sonnenberg, Brittani

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1455548332 ISBN 13: 9781455548330

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2015

Synopsis

Brittani Sonnenberg's "emotionally charged" (Real Simple) debut novel following a family's search for home abroad is now in paperback.

Chris Kriegstein is a man on the move, with a career that catapults his family across the globe. For his wife, Elise, the hardship of chronic relocation is soothed by the allure of reinvention. But it's the Kriegstein daughters, Leah and Sophie, who face the most tumult. With each new move, the girls find they can count on only one thing: the consoling, confounding presence of each other.

When the family suffers an unimaginable loss, they can't help but wonder: Was it meant to be, or did one decision change their lives forever? Called "stark but sweet, warm and wise" by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, HOME LEAVE chases this wildly loveable family through the excitement and anguish of their journeys around the world.

About this title

About the Author:

Brittani Sonnenberg was raised across three continents and has worked as a journalist in Germany, China, and throughout Southeast Asia. A graduate of Harvard, she received her MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan. Her fiction has been published in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008 as well as Ploughshares, Short Fiction, and Asymptote. Her nonfiction has appeared in Time, Associated Press, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NPR Berlin. HOME LEAVE is her first novel.

Review:

"A lyrical meditation on loss, geographical place, expatriate experience, sibling rivalry, family, and growing up. Sonnenberg writes with clarity about the messiness of the expat Kriegstein family's lives. . . . Sonnenberg captures beautifully what it's like to grow up as an American abroad, not as a tourist but not fully as a native either."―Cleaver Magazine

"[An] inventive debut . . . Captures the everywhere-but-nowhere paradoxes of our global world."―Vogue.com (A "Summer Book" selection)

"[A] striking debut."―Bethanne Patrick, Washingtonian ("A Top 10 Book for June")

"Emotionally charged . . . The Kreigsteins are such authentic and complex characters that readers will be captivated by all of them."―Real Simple ("The Best Books of 2014")

"Stark but sweet, warm and wise, Home Leave is an ambitious, well-executed debut. . . [it] will leave many readers hoping for another Sonnenberg novel full of the same humor, compassion and honesty."―Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"HOME LEAVE announces the debut of a writer to be reckoned with. . . . A moving multiple-narrative exploration of the life of a peripatetic family torn asunder by the death in the family. . . . Sonnenberg explores each character's inner and outer world with psychological acuity. . . . Sonnenberg [is] a writer of boundless creativity, polished prose, and impressive insight produced by her own world travels and wide range of experiences."―ReadHerLikeanOpenBook.com

"The lucidity of Sonnenberg's prose . . . is notable for its stark honesty and sharply observed details. . . . [An] ambitious debut."―Kirkus Reviews

"Sonnenberg delivers a sympathetic, funny debut."―Publishers Weekly

"Sonnenberg writes like a house on fire. The opening chapter alone is worth the price of this book."―ReadHerLikeanOpenBook.wordpress.com

"HOME LEAVE is a rich, lively novel. Original in conception and set in various continents, it describes migrations as a contemporary existential condition. More importantly, it shows how this condition effects change, loss, and growth in the migrants. It offers many insights that are true."―Ha Jin, National Book Award winner for Waiting

About this edition

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1455548332
• ISBN 13: 9781455548330
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 287