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“Few fiction writers working today have more successfully rendered the sensation of solid ground suddenly melting away, pinpointing that instant when the familiar present is swallowed up by an always encroaching past or voided future.”
— New York Times Book Review
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“Startlingly good…You may forget that the characters don’t really exist, that the Iowa farm family so expertly drawn by the author never drew breath themselves, that most of the events that transpire across the book’s three-decade span aren’t part of the historical record.”
— Chicago Tribune
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“Jean Thompson writes with both sensitivity and intelligence, from a place of deep compassion for her characters and the world in which they live.”
— O, The Oprah Magazine
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“One of our most astute diagnosticians of contemporary experience, conflict, unhappiness, and regret.”
— Boston Globe
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“Enlightening and quietly brilliant…Thompson is a master at mining the most ridiculous of human foibles while never losing compassion for her flawed characters…One of the best and most memorable books of the year.”
— Miami Herald
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“Bleak, wry, and tender…Syntax and sense are so perfectly melded, the reader steps through the looking glass and lives in the world the words conjure…Such is Thompson’s artistry that moments of everyday sorrow and nobility made me weep.”
— Cleveland Plain Dealer
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“[A] rich, detailed, resonant, emotionally spot-on novel…By the end of the novel, the reader knows more about the Ericksons than even the Ericksons. The effect is enormously satisfying, allowing the reader not only to connect the dots but to fill in the blanks the author shrewdly leaves wide open…Thompson has a light, exquisite touch. The Year We Left Home feels weightless as a result.”
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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“Powerful and darkly humorous…Thompson’s characters are sharply drawn and deeply familiar. Her dialogue is pitch-perfect.”
— Minneapolis Star Tribune
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“Wise and absorbing, this is one not to miss.”
— People
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“Precisely the kind of beautifully crafted, intelligent, imaginative writing that serious readers crave…Each sentence deserves to be appreciated.”
— USA Today
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“The clan at the center of Jean Thompson’s spare, startlingly resonant new novel remain inextricably linked to the place that made them, even as they reach for lives richer in both geography and purpose…But even minor characters receive the full attention of the author’s prodigious talents; each one is drawn so vividly that they never feel less than utterly real…Lovely…Told with extraordinary grace. Belongs on everyone’s summer reading list.”
— Entertainment Weekly
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“This compelling chronicle of the subtle and grand departures that constitute a life is alive with incident and told by a cast of likable characters who are as uniquely drawn as they are recognizable.”
— More
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“In the same vein as Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, The Year We Left Home unpacks the quotidian stories of a family with such mindfulness and attention, the result is both devastating and perfect…She’s a hell of a writer, with descriptions…sharp and true and bizarre…Thompson’s close-to-the-ground details, in all of her fiction, are genius.”
— Bust magazine
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“Superb…Finely crafted…Thompson’s pithy humor, redolent details, and knowing compassion have never been sharper or more resounding as her characters’ follies and struggles reveal depthless truths about men and women, families and vocations, the lure of away and the gravitational pull of home.”
— Booklist (starred review)
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“Dazzling…Unforgettable…A masterful wide-angle portrait of an Iowa family over three decades…Thompson’s ability to put these characters empathically on the page, in their special setting, over an extended period of years, with just the right dose of dark humor, rivals Richard Russo’s…The novel is a powerful reflection on middle American life—on the changes wrought by the passing years and the values that endure.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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“Thompson paints a compelling, realistic picture of four siblings slugging through issues such as alcoholism, infidelity, and handicaps in The Year We Left Home. Thompson tackles the stuff of real life, and it’s clear that she has great compassion for her characters. Their gut-wrenching, honest inner monologues and resilience imbue them with humanity. Readers will undoubtedly see slivers of themselves in this flawed family, and while the content in The Year We Left Home may be heavy, it’s not without an occasional glimpse of a silver lining.”
— BookPage