Same As It Ever Was: A Novel,New

The New York Times bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had (wonderfully immersivedeliciously absorbingNPR) returns with another brilliantly observed family drama in which the enduring, hardwon affection of a long marriage faces imminent derailment from events both past and present.Same As It Ever Was showcases the consummate style, signature wit, and profound emotional intelligence that made The Most Fun We Ever Had one of the most beloved novels of the past decade. Featuring a memorably messy family and the multifaceted marriage at its heart, Lombardos debut was dubbed the literary love child of Jonathan Franzen and Anne Tyler (The Guardian) and hailed as ambitious and brilliantly written (Washington Post). In this remarkable followupanother elegant and tumultuous story in the tradition of Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patchett, and Celeste NgLombardo introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters, this time by way of her singularly complicated protagonist.Julia Ames, after a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, has found herself on the placid plateau of midlife. But Julia has never navigated the world with the equanimity of her current privileged class. Having nearly derailed herself several times, making desperate bids for the kind of connection that always felt inaccessible to her, she finally feels, at age fifty seven, that she has a firm handle on things.Shes unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straightarrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenaged daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which threaten to draw her back into the patterns that had previously kept her on a razors edge.Same As It Ever Was traverses the rocky terrain of real life, exploring new avenues of maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the happenstantial causeandeffect that governs us all. Delving even deeper into the nature of relationshipshow they grow, change, and sometimes endLombardo proves herself a true and definitive cartographer of the human heart and asserts herself among the finest novelists of her generation.