A Reason to See You Again

(Hardback, Large Print Edition)

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From New York Times bestselling author Jami Attenberg comes a dazzling novel of family, following a troubled mother and her two daughters over forty years and through a swiftly changing American landscape as they seek lives they can fully claim as their own. 

The women of the Cohen family are in crisis. Triggered by the death of their patriarch, Rudy, the glue that held them all together, everyones lives soon take a dramatic turn.

Shelly, the younger of the two Cohen sisters, runs off to the West Coast to immerse herself in the emerging (and lucrative) world of technology. Her sister, Nancy, gets married at the age of twenty-one to a traveling salesman with a shadowy lifestyle, while their mother, Frieda, hurls herself into a boozy, troubled existence in Miami, trying to forget the past even as it haunts her.

But they each learn in different ways that running from the past cant save youand then must make life-altering decisions about what they want their family to be and what they need to move forward.

Beginning in the 1970s and spanning forty years, A Reason to See You Again takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic journey through motherhood, the American workforce, the tech industry, the self-help movement, inherited trauma, the ever-evolving ways we communicate with one another, and the many unexpected forms that love can take.

Reviews

I loved leaping through time with the four Cohen womenFrieda, Nancy, Shelly, and Jess. Each woman is intelligent and self-sabotagingthe way we all can beand they love each other fiercely, often from a careful distance. Attenbergs writing is sharp and incisiveits a pleasure to watch the patterns she created unfold over forty years of these womens lives. Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful and Dear Edward

The vicissitudes of [Attenbergs] characters are undeniably absorbing. Kirkus Reviews

"Entertaining and empathetic. . . . Attenberg knows how to imperil her characters and love them at the same time. . . . Readers will happily sit with these women through it all. Booklist (starred review)

"When their father passes, the Cohen sisters and their mother seem rudderless and strike out in opposite directions. Spanning 40 years, this moving saga asks if love can heal brokenness." Saturday Evening Post

Attenbergs nuanced latest . . . . is carried along by deliciously realistic descriptions of the Cohens complex relationships. Its an admirable portrait of a distinctly unhappy family. Publishers Weekly

Attenberg knows where to shine a spotlight to reveal characters' personalities and dynamics . . . . [Her] characters are as loveable as they are maddening, and the combination of choices and luck makes the novel's events feel as randomand genuineas real life. . . . [A] masterful dysfunctional family story. Shelf Awareness

Glimmers of humor lift a narrative that time-hops and head-hops, as the Cohen women come together and fall apart, squabble and make up. . . . Attenbergs fans will enjoy this novel, as will those who like sharply observed dysfunctional mother-daughter stories. Library Journal

A moving epic about the endurance of family love. Real Simple

[A] wry novel about love, loss, and inherited trauma.  Time

[A] dramatic, page-turning novel. People

From Jami Attenberg, doyen of absorbing family excavations, 37 years in the life of the Cohens: a closeted patriarch, his foundering widow, their daughters, poles apart. Vanity Fair

With wry, streamlined wit and almost ruthless efficiency, [Attenberg] distill[s] the essence of her characters . . . Even minor players are so sharply sketched that they feel immediately familiar, and the cultural markers ring true, too, from the crosscurrents of second- and third-wave feminism to the gold-rush opportunism of the early tech boom . . . . From her, Id take 10 more chapters of unhappily ever after.  New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice)

Author Bio

Jami Attenberg is the New York Times bestselling author of seven books of fiction, including The Middlesteins, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She has written about food, travel, books, relationships, and urban life for the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, the London Sunday Times, the London Guardian, and others. She is also the founder of the annual #1000WordsofSummer project.