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Did You Ever Have a Family: A Novel Audiobook
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD, MAN BOOKER PRIZE, PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE, AND ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE • AN ALA NOTABLE BOOK
Hailed as “masterly” by The New York Times Book Review, “a brilliantly constructed debut set in the aftermath of catastrophic loss” (2015 Man Booker Prize Judges).
The stunning debut novel from bestselling author Bill Clegg is a magnificently powerful story about a circle of people who find solace in the least likely of places as they cope with a horrific tragedy.
On the eve of her daughter’s wedding, June Reid’s life is upended when a shocking disaster takes the lives of her daughter, her daughter’s fiancé, her ex-husband, and her boyfriend, Luke—her entire family, all gone in a moment. June is the only survivor.
Alone and directionless, June drives across the country, away from her small Connecticut town. In her wake, a community emerges, weaving a beautiful and surprising web of connections through shared heartbreak.
From the couple running a motel on the Pacific Ocean where June eventually settles into a quiet half-life, to the wedding’s caterer whose bill has been forgotten, to Luke’s mother, the shattered outcast of the town—everyone touched by the tragedy is changed as truths about their near and far histories finally come to light.
Elegant and heartrending, and one of the most accomplished fiction debuts of the year, Did You Ever Have a Family is an absorbing, unforgettable tale that reveals humanity at its best through forgiveness and hope. At its core is a celebration of family—the ones we are born with and the ones we create.
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“Acclaimed memoirist Bill Clegg offers a profound jolt with his first novel…Every character and every small tragedy is a sensitively portrayed, complex, and compelling study on its own. What first appears to be a tale of grief in the face of unspeakable loss grows with its own momentum, until finally its scope is much wider than initially suspected. The expansive and surprising result eventually portrays the building of community and the possibility of recovery, even forgiveness. Did You Ever Have a Family is an elegant first novel, carefully composed and beautifully, hauntingly written.”
— Shelf Awareness
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“Full of small-town secrets and whispers, Bill Clegg has woven a richly textured tale of loss and healing. This is a deeply optimistic book about the power of human sympathy to pull us from the wreckage of our fate.”
— Anne Enright, Man Booker Prize winner for The Gathering -
“In this sorrowful and deeply probing debut novel, literary agent and memoirist Clegg delivers a story of loss and its grueling aftermath…it’s Clegg’s deft handling of all the parsed details—missed opportunities, harbored regrets, and unspoken good intentions—that make the journey toward redemption and forgiveness so memorable.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review) -
“Clegg is both delicately lyrical and emotionally direct in this masterful novel, which strives to show how people make bearable what is unbearable, offering consolation in small but meaningful gestures. Both ineffably sad and deeply inspiring, this mesmerizing novel makes for a powerful debut.”
— Booklist (starred review) -
“An attempt to map how the unbearable is borne, elegantly written and bravely imagined.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) -
“A scorching depiction of a community’s grief after a life-changing event.”
— BookPage -
“The force, range, and scope of Bill Clegg’s Did You Ever Have a Family will grab you with its opening lines, and won’t let go until its final one. I can’t recall another novel that so effortlessly weds a nuanced, lyrical voice to an unflinching vision of just how badly things can go for people. I read it deep into the night, all the way through, telling myself it was getting late, I could finish the book in the morning. I finished it that night, however, slept a few hours, and then, in the morning, started reading it again.”
— Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours -
“I marveled my way through Did You Ever Have a Family, at not just the masterful writing and storytelling, but at the emotional authenticities of every persuasion. It’s a wondrous thing when a writer gets things this right, this absorbing, and this beautiful. Bravo, Bill Clegg, and thank you.”
— Elinor Lipman, author of The View from Penthouse B
Awards
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A 2015 Man Booker Prize Longlist Book
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A September 2015 LibraryReads Pick
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A National Book Award Longlist Selection
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A Carnegie Medal for Literature Longlist Selection
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A Library Journal Best Book of 2015
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A 2015 Amazon Best Books of the Year Selection for Literature & Fiction
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A NPR’s Great Reads Selection of 2015
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About Bill Clegg
Bill Clegg is a literary agent in New York. He is the author of Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man, and Ninety Days: A Memoir of Recovery. He graduated from Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.