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Housebreaking: A Novel

e-book


In this ā€œheartfelt chamber piece of flawed personalities, calamitous decisions, and unexpected moments of graceā€ (The New York Times Book Review), two suburban families are hopelessly entangled during an explosive Thanksgiving weekend that changes their lives forever.

When Benjaminā€™s wife kicks him out of their house, he returns to his childhood home in Connecticut to live with his widowed father. Lost, lonely, and doubting everything he felt he knew about marriage and loveā€”even as his eighty-year-old father begins to date againā€”Benjamin is trying to put his life back together when he recognizes someone down the street: his high school crush, the untouchable Audrey Martin. Audrey has just moved to the neighborhood with her high-powered lawyer husband and their rebellious teenager, Emily. As it turns out, Audrey isnā€™t so untouchable anymore, and she and Benjamin begin to discover, in each otherā€™s company, answers to many of their own deepest longings. Meanwhile, as the neighborhood is wracked by a mysterious series of robberies, Audrey seems to be hiding a tragic secret, and her husband, Andrew, becomes involved in a dangerous professional game he can never win. And, by the way, who is paying attention to Emily?

Powerful, provocative, and psychologically gripping, Housebreaking explores the ways that two familiesā€”and four livesā€”can all too easily veer off track, losing sight of everyone, and everything, they once held dear. Like the best from Tom Perrotta and Rick Moody, ā€œthis compassionate, utterly engrossing novel of suburban dysfunctionā€¦makes some trenchant points about how easily people can lose sight of whatā€™s most importantā€ (Booklist).