"Going home for Thanksgiving wasn't something I had planned on...every year Frances asked me to come for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but every year for one reason or another, I said no. We both understood the effect we had on each other, only made worse by the holidays. Still, Frances felt she needed to invite me, just as I needed to refuse. In this way, we absolved each other. Or that's how it worked until one October day, over a year ago now, when Frances called to say that our father would be spending Thanksgiving with her, for the first time in a quarter of a century, and she literally begged me to fly to Boston..." Markedly different since childhood, and leading very different lives now, Frances and Cynthia have nevertheless managed to remain "devoted" - so long as they stay on opposite coasts. But with the reappearance of their elderly, long-estranged father they find themselves reunited for a cold, snowy Thanksgiving week, during which sleeping tensions and old griefs reawaken. Frances, once the father's favourite, envisions a happy family holiday along with her husband and daughters in her lovely old New England farmhouse, while Cynthia, a writer of "historical fiction for girls," doesn't understand how Frances can ignore the past their father's presence suddenly revives, a past that includes suspicions about their mother's death twenty-five years earlier and who was really to blame. Adding to Cynthia's uneasiness is her research for a book on Mark Twain's daughters, whose lives she thinks eerily mirror her own and Frances' - a point on which Frances eagerly agrees, but from the opposite perspective. As Thanksgiving day arrives, with a houseful of guests looking forward to dinner, the sisters continue to struggle with different versions of their shared past, until a warning issued by Cynthia's friend Carita, that "Families are toxic, and blood is bloody," proves prophetically true. At turns poignant and funny, this haunting novel demonstrates what happens when one person tries to rewrite another's history, and explores the mystery of why families try to stay together - even when it may be in their best interests to keep apart.
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From the Inside Flap
Going home for Thanksgiving wasn't something I had planned
on...every year Frances asked me to come for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but every year for one reason or another, I said no.
on...every year Frances asked me to come for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but every year for one reason or another, I said no.
We both understood the effect we had on each other, only made worse by the holidays. Still Frances felt she needed to invite me, just as I needed to refuse. In this way, we absolved each other. Or that's how it worked until one October day, over a year ago now, when Frances called to say that our father would be spending Thanksgiving with her, for the first time in a quarter of a century, and she literally begged me to fly to Boston...
From the Back Cover
`Tense and keenly observed...absorbing stuff' Marie Claire
`Gripping and hugely satisfying' Guardian
`A deeply enjoyable novel...beautifully written' Evening Standard
`A subtle, beautifully written and haunting novel' Daily Mail --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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First Sentence
Going home for Thanksgiving wasn't something I had planned on-or I should say, I hadn't planned on going to Frances's house in Concord, which over the years I've sometimes referred to as "home," simply because it's back east. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Going home for Thanksgiving wasn't something I had planned on-or I should say, I hadn't planned on going to Frances's house in Concord, which over the years I've sometimes referred to as "home," simply because it's back east. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By Avid
Format:Hardcover
This is a completely gripping and often very funny read, by a really marvellous writer, whose plain elegant style belies her sophistication: set in the suburbs in New England, it's about family. Two sisters and their aged father gather over one Thanksgiving and all sorts of family history and myths are revisited. Unsettling and filled with menace this is an extraordinary account of how we all re-tell family history and remember things in different ways. The unreliable narrator is not necessarily unreliable...
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By gerty guinea
Format:Paperback
This was OK. I liked the setting, but thought A Perfect Arrangement by the same author was slightly better in this respect. The book has some humorous moments and some good characters but overall seems to lack something. I felt the Mark Twain issue was a bit overdone, and the ending wasn't great. Overall, not bad - but not great either.
By Ellie Reader
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Really enjoyed this tale of family dynamics, with which anyone with siblings could identify. The central figure, the father, now ill and abandoned by his second wife, remains largely silent, but the the effect he has on the family Thanksgiving celebrations are profound, bringing forth long forgotten issues regarding the death of his first wife. A big subject handled very skillfully with humour and a light touch.
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3.7 out of 5 stars
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