Goldengrove
A Novel
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Goldengrove is an emotionally powerful novel about adolescent love and loss from Francine Prose, the New York Times bestselling author of Reading Like a Writer and A Changed Man. Focusing on a young girl facing the consequences of sudden loss after the death of her sister, this masterful coming-of-age work is radiant with the possibility of summer and charged by the restless sexual tension of teenage life.
After the sudden death of her beloved older sister, thirteen-year-old Nico finds her life on New England's idyllic Mirror Lake irrevocably altered. Left alone to grope toward understanding, she falls into a seductive, dangerous relationship with her sister's boyfriend. Over one haunted summer, Nico faces that life-changing moment when children realize their parents can no longer help them as she experiences the mystery of loss and recovery. Still, for all the darkness at its heart, Goldengrove is radiant with the lightness of summer and charged by the restless sexual tension of adolescence.
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Author Extras
Reading Guides:
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Critical Praise for
Goldengrove
"Ms. Prose is perceptive. . . . Her modest-sounding book turns out to be beautifully wrought.... and yields an unexpectedly rich, tart, eye-opening sense of Nico’s world."
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New York Times
"With perfect pitch and no trace of sentimentality, Prose . . . lands on the precise emotional key for this novel . . . allowing humor and compassion to seep through the cracks of an otherwise dark tale."
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San Francisco Chronicle
"Prose locates the life force that gives her narrator the quirky, irreverent but undeniable sound of a survivor. . . . Prose is tremendously skilled."
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Chicago Tribune
"Prose creates characters with real flaws that make the reader both love and hate them. It is easy to put oneself in the position of any of the players..."
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Deseret Morning News
"Arguably, "Goldengrove" is her best book yet."
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Seattle Times
"A beautiful narrative that defines resilience as the sometimes heartbreaking act of simply living"
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Redbook Magazine
"Prose’s skillful rendering of the human ability to accept hard truths and move on is a poignant lesson for us all."
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Miami Herald
"Deeply touching and absorbing..."
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Publishers Weekly
"Prose holds up a mirror to grief and family life we can’t look away from, revealing their truths on page after page, in beautifully crafted writing."
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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"Beautifully crafted...perhaps her most emotionally satisfying novel."
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Christian Science Monitor
"With a dazzling mix of directness and metaphor, Prose captures the centrifugal and isolating force of grief...Prose exquisitely renders her characters’ grief and bafflement."
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Los Angeles Times
"Insightful, lyrical... "Goldengrove" is beautifully and simply written...a moving portrait of the search for identity through a landscape of pain and loss."
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"A poignant account of growing up amid sorrow...a tender and moving story of adolescent love."
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Hartford Courant
"Francine Prose’s new novel is a quiet, clear-eyed, sun-dappled eulogy to lost youth, and a youth lost. . . . [Prose is ] a keen chronicler of human emotion."
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Elle
"A page-turner, thanks to its wholly identifiable, and perfectly flawed, young heroine. A-"
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Entertainment Weekly
"An exploration of the fragility of adolescent identity and the perilous undertow of grief"
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O magazine
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Goldengrove
At the center of Francine Prose's profoundly moving new novel is a young girl facing the consequences of sudden loss after the death of her sister. As her parents drift toward their own risky consolations, thirteen-year-old Nico is left alone to grope toward understanding and clarity, falling into...
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Reading Like a Writer
Long before there were creative-writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says Francine Prose. In Reading Like a Writer , Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the...
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