Matthew Thomas - We Are Not Ourselves

Destined to be a classic, We Are Not Ourselves is a "powerfully moving" (Chad Harbach, "The Art of Fielding), multigenerational novel about an Irish-American family that is being hailed as nothing short of a "masterwork" (Joshua Ferris, "Then We Came to the End"). Born in 1941, Eileen Tumulty is raised by her Irish immigrant parents in Woodside, Queens, in an apartment where the mood swings between heartbreak and hilarity, depending on whether guests are over and how much alcohol has been consumed. When Eileen meets Ed Leary, a scientist whose bearing is nothing like those of the men she grew up with, she thinks she's found the perfect partner to deliver her to the cosmopolitan world she longs to inhabit. They marry, and Eileen quickly discovers Ed doesn't aspire to the same, ever bigger, stakes in the American Dream. Epic in scope, heroic in character, masterful in prose, this debut novel heralds the arrival of a major new talent in contemporary fiction.

Matthew Thomas was born in the Bronx and grew up in Queens. A graduate of the University of Chicago, he has an MA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, where he received the Graduate Essay Award. He lives with his wife and twin children in New Jersey.

 

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