The Blessings, Elise Juska
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The Blessings

Author: Elise Juska

Narrator: Therese Plummer

Unabridged: 8 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/06/2014


Synopsis

"Bursting with wise observations." -- J. Courtney Sullivan, author of The Engagements and Maine

"Gleams like a jewel." -- The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Stunning. . . Unique and unforgettable." -- Glamour

Hailed as one of the best books of 2014 by The Philadelphia Inquirer, Elise Juska's The Blessings is a moving novel about a tight-knit Irish Catholic clan over the course of twenty years.

The Blessings rally around one another in times of celebration and those of sorrow, coming together for departures and arrivals, while its members harbor private struggles and moments of personal joy. College student Abby ponders homesickness in her first semester away from her Philadelphia home, while her cousin Stephen commits a petty act of violence that takes a surprising turn, and their aunt Lauren faces a crisis in her storybook marriage she could never have foreseen. Through the lens of one unforgettable family, this beautifully moving novel explores how our families define us and how we shape them in return.

Author Bio

Elise Juska’s previous novels include If We Had Known and The Blessings. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in the Missouri Review, Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares, the Hudson Review, Electric Literature, and other publications. She is the recipient of the Alice Hoffman Prize from Ploughshares, and her work has been cited by the Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize anthologies. She lives with her family outside Philadelphia, where she is a professor of creative writing at the University of the Arts.

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