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.
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 a seductive, dangerous relationship with her sister's enigmatic boyfriend.
Over one haunted summer, Nico must face that life-changing moment when children realize their parents can no longer help them. She learns about the power of art, of time and place, the mystery of loss and recovery. But for all the darkness at the novel's heart, the narrative itself is radiant with the lightness of summer and charged by the restless sexual tension of teenage life.
Goldengrove takes its place among the great novels of adolescence, beside Henry James's The Awkward Age and L. P. Hartley's The Go-Between.
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Author Extras
Reading Guides:
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Critical Praise for
Goldengrove
"...emotionally authentic...a ravishing novel of the mystery of death and life’s assertion."
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Booklist (starred review)
"Deeply touching and absorbing..."
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Publishers Weekly
"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
"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
"An exploration of the fragility of adolescent identity and the perilous undertow of grief"
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O magazine
"Deeply touching and absorbing..."
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Publishers Weekly
"Arguably, "Goldengrove" is her best book yet."
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Seattle 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 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
"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
"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 beautiful narrative that defines resilience as the sometimes heartbreaking act of simply living"
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Redbook Magazine
"Beautifully crafted...perhaps her most emotionally satisfying novel."
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Christian Science Monitor
"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 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
"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 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
"A poignant account of growing up amid sorrow...a tender and moving story of adolescent love."
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Hartford Courant
"A page-turner, thanks to its wholly identifiable, and perfectly flawed, young heroine. A-"
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Entertainment Weekly
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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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