Bethany Ball. (2017). What to Do About the Solomons. Grove Atlantic.

Bethany Ball. 2017. What to Do About the Solomons. Grove Atlantic.

Bethany Ball, What to Do About the Solomons. Grove Atlantic, 2017.

Bethany Ball. What to Do About the Solomons. Grove Atlantic, 2017.

OverDrive Product Record

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/2363-1/{2DBE9D8B-A0D4-4DD7-BD50-5353E20789BA}IMG100.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/2363-1/{2DBE9D8B-A0D4-4DD7-BD50-5353E20789BA}IMG200.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/2363-1/{2DBE9D8B-A0D4-4DD7-BD50-5353E20789BA}IMG150.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/2363-1/{2DBE9D8B-A0D4-4DD7-BD50-5353E20789BA}IMG400.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg

formats

1. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780802190727
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
2. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B01N47H686
   • name: Kindle Book
   • id: ebook-kindle
3. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780802190727
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • id: ebook-overdrive

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9780802124579

mediaType

eBook

primaryCreator

• role: Author
• name: Bethany Ball

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

What to Do About the Solomons

dateAdded

2017-04-07T23:04:00Z

contentDetails

1. • href: https://link.overdrive.com?websiteID=141&titleID=3058884
   • type: text/html
   • account:
     • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
     • id: 1151

sortTitle

What to Do About the Solomons

crossRefId

3058884

id

2DBE9D8B-A0D4-4DD7-BD50-5353E20789BA

starRating

3.1

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain

False

formats

1. • fileName: WhattoDoAbouttheSolo_9780802190727_3058884
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 1291477
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780802190727
   • rights:
     1. • type: Copying
        • value: 0
     2. • type: Printing
        • value: 0
     3. • type: Lending
        • value: 0
     4. • type: ReadAloud
        • value: 1
     5. • type: ExpirationRights
        • value: 0
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
   • onSaleDate: 9/1/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=2dbe9d8b-a0d4-4dd7-bd50-5353e20789ba&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
2. • fileName: WhattoDoAbouttheSolo_3058884
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B01N47H686
   • name: Kindle Book
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-kindle
   • onSaleDate: 9/1/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=2dbe9d8b-a0d4-4dd7-bd50-5353e20789ba&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
3. • fileName: WhattoDoAbouttheSolo_9780802190727_3058884
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 960053
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9780802190727
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-overdrive
   • onSaleDate: 9/1/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=2dbe9d8b-a0d4-4dd7-bd50-5353e20789ba&.epub-sample.overdrive.com

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Ball, Bethany
   • bioText: Praise for WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE SOLOMONS"Ball switches points of view for a mosaic of family members and associates in crisis and adrift. Her terse, sharp-edged prose captures settings ranging from an American jail where highest bail is king to a French military post where they haven't won a war since Napoleon, but they sure know how to live. For all its humor, penetrating disillusionment underlies Ball's memorable portrait of a family, once driven by pioneer spirit, now plagued by overextension and loss of direction, unsure what to do with its legacy, teetering between resentment, remorse, and resilience."—Publishers Weekly"Ball, with great humor, profound wit, and notable insight, vividly captures a singular family....This novel from a most promising writer has been compared to the work of Isaac B. Singer and Grace Paley, as well as Nathan Englander and Jennifer Egan. Try Eudora Welty with sex and Jews."—Booklist"Ball's prose is compulsively readable, almost addictive, and she has a wicked sense of humor."—Kirkus Reviews"A riveting family drama which feels at once solidly classic and bitingly contemporary; if Transparent and A Thousand Acres snuck off and had a kid, you'd have What To Do About The Solomons. With their screw-ups, their sadnesses, their pasts catching up on them and their futures slamming in hard, these people are fascinating to be with and oddly hard to leave. Isn't that always the way with family - as long as they're not your own?"—Belinda McKeon, author of Tender"Bethany Ball lays bare the complexities of modern life in prose that has the resonant simplicity of a fairy tale. Readers who love I.B. Singer and Grace Paley now have another writer to adore."—Brian Morton, author of Starting Out in the Evening"Bethany Ball, in her fearless literary debut, goes deep into contemporary life to give the reader characters so alive we have met them and a story so true it takes fiction to tell it. From Israel to Manhattan to Connecticut and back, on a bridge of family, money, lies, drugs, and false accusations. For the reader, a knock on the door will never be the same."—Scott Wolven, author of Controlled Burn"Bethany Ball is a sharp, sensitive writer whose gift for details—a gesture, an article of clothing, a square stone, a meal eaten by a lonely, neglected ten-year-old—reveals, magically, whole worlds. She is both tender and relentless with her characters: her affection for them is palpable, yet she subjects them to exquisitely revealing examinations. We're lucky she does, for here in What to Do About the Solomons a family and its most harrowing moments come to life so completely we forget that we're not reading about ourselves and our own families."—Nelly Reifler, author of Elect H. Mouse State Judge and See Through"In What to Do About the Solomons, Bethany Ball peels back the manicured surface of family and community to surgically expose a world of hurt. Told in a razor-sharp prose that takes no prisoners, this is that rare book that can make you laugh while it's breaking your heart. I couldn't get enough."—David Hollander, author of L.I.E.
   • name: Bethany Ball

imprint

Atlantic Monthly Press

publishDate

2017-04-04T00:00:00-04:00

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

What to Do About the Solomons

fullDescription

A “funny, sexy, and smart” multigenerational saga following the secret lives of an (over) extended Jewish family—from Israel to America (Judy Blume).
 
More than oceans divide the Solomons. And now, it’s a scandal. Prodigal son Marc Solomon, an Israeli ex-Navy commando living in Los Angeles, is falsely accused of money laundering through his California investment firm. As his home is raided, Marc’s wife, Carolyn ―concealing her own dicey past―makes hopeless attempts to hold their family of five together. Not surprisingly, news of Marc’s disgrace makes its way from Santa Monica to a kibbutz on the Jordan River Valley, and the rest of the mortified Solomon clan: Marc’s self-absorbed wannabe movie star sister, Shira; his rich, powerful and fed-up construction magnet father, Yakov; his childhood sweetheart, Maya; and his brother-in-law Guy, a local ranger turned “mad artist.” As the secrets of the community are revealed through various memories and tales, we witness the tenuous bonds that can keep the Solomons together, and the truths and rumors that could ultimately tear them apart.
 
Elegant, witty, and provocative, What to Do About the Solomons weaves contemporary Jewish history through a distinctly modern and very savvy tale of family life. “I ended [it] absolutely swimming with affection, not just for the characters but for the multiple worlds that created them . . . there’s something profoundly lovely―and loving―about the Solomons” (New York Times Book Review).

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Publishers Weekly
   • content: "Ball switches points of view for a mosaic of family members and associates in crisis and adrift. Her terse, sharp-edged prose captures settings ranging from an American jail where highest bail is king to a French military post where they haven't won a war since Napoleon, but they sure know how to live. For all its humor, penetrating disillusionment underlies Ball's memorable portrait of a family, once driven by pioneer spirit, now plagued by overextension and loss of direction, unsure what to do with its legacy, teetering between resentment, remorse, and resilience."
2. • premium: False
   • source: Booklist
   • content: "Ball, with great humor, profound wit, and notable insight, vividly captures a singular family....This novel from a most promising writer has been compared to the work of Isaac B. Singer and Grace Paley, as well as Nathan Englander and Jennifer Egan. Try Eudora Welty with sex and Jews."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Kirkus Reviews
   • content: "Ball's prose is compulsively readable, almost addictive, and she has a wicked sense of humor."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Belinda McKeon, author of Tender
   • content: "A riveting family drama which feels at once solidly classic and bitingly contemporary; if Transparent and A Thousand Acres snuck off and had a kid, you'd have What To Do About The Solomons. With their screw-ups, their sadnesses, their pasts catching up on them and their futures slamming in hard, these people are fascinating to be with and oddly hard to leave. Isn't that always the way with family - as long as they're not your own?"
5. • premium: False
   • source: Brian Morton, author of Starting Out in the Evening
   • content: "Bethany Ball lays bare the complexities of modern life in prose that has the resonant simplicity of a fairy tale. Readers who love I.B. Singer and Grace Paley now have another writer to adore."
6. • premium: False
   • source: Scott Wolven, author of Controlled Burn
   • content: "Bethany Ball, in her fearless literary debut, goes deep into contemporary life to give the reader characters so alive we have met them and a story so true it takes fiction to tell it. From Israel to Manhattan to Connecticut and back, on a bridge of family, money, lies, drugs, and false accusations. For the reader, a knock on the door will never be the same."
7. • premium: False
   • source: Nelly Reifler, author of Elect H. Mouse State Judge and See Through
   • content: “Bethany Ball is a sharp, sensitive writer whose gift for details--a gesture, an article of clothing, a square stone, a meal eaten by a lonely, neglected ten-year-old--reveals, magically, whole worlds. She is both tender and relentless with her characters: her affection for them is palpable, yet she subjects them to exquisitely revealing examinations. We're lucky she does, for here in What to Do About the Solomons a family and its most harrowing moments come to life so completely we forget that we're not reading about ourselves and our own families."
8. • premium: False
   • source: David Hollander, author of L.I.E.
   • content: “In What to Do About the Solomons, Bethany Ball peels back the manicured surface of family and community to surgically expose a world of hurt. Told in a razor-sharp prose that takes no prisoners, this is that rare book that can make you laugh while it's breaking your heart. I couldn't get enough."
9. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     February 6, 2017
     Respected leader at his kibbutz, founder of a thriving construction business, 75-year-old patriarch Yakov Solomon is fed up with his children in Ball’s debut novel about a prosperous, beleaguered Israeli family. Yakov no longer speaks to eldest son Ziv, who lives in Singapore with another man; middle son Dror suffers from severe sibling envy; rich and successful Marc’s California investment firm faces criminal investigation; daughter Keren’s husband, Guy, cannot control his artistic impulses; and daughter Shira, whose acting career peaked with a bit part in a Harry Potter movie, leaves her 11-year-old son, Joseph, home alone while she visits Hollywood. Money can’t solve their problems, and medication—prescribed or illegal—only makes them worse. Marc returns to the kibbutz, his wife stoned, his childhood sweetheart suicidal, his future uncertain, while Joseph assists his half-brother’s attempt to run away from army service. Clearly, the Solomons have come a long way from the ideals of the kibbutz in early years. Ball switches points of view for a mosaic of family members and associates in crisis and adrift. Her terse, sharp-edged prose captures settings ranging from an American jail where highest bail is king to a French military post where they haven’t won a war since Napoleon, but they sure know how to live. For all its humor, penetrating disillusionment underlies Ball’s memorable portrait of a family, once driven by pioneer spirit, now plagued by overextension and loss of direction, unsure what to do with its legacy, teetering between resentment, remorse, and resilience. Agent: Duvall Osteen, the Aragi Agency.

10. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      February 1, 2017
      An ambitious literary debut about an Israeli family and its oddball members.When Guy Gever starts taking branches and sticks, arranging them in bizarre configurations around his home or in the midst of a field, and calling the result "art," his wife's family, the Solomons, is concerned. Yakov Solomon, the family patriarch, is especially concerned. Yakov has financially supported each of his children well into adulthood, and it looks like his duties still aren't over. "When my children want money, they come to me," he says. "I've paid for six weddings, five divorces, the funeral of one daughter-in-law's father, and countless birthday celebrations. Now I must pay for Guy Gever's madness?" Ball's debut novel examines the lives of each of the Solomons--Guy Gever and Yakov, yes, but also Marc Solomon, Yakov's youngest son, who moves to LA from their cloistered kibbutz, marries, has children, and is then accused of money laundering; and Marc's sister, Shira, an aging actress who takes off for LA while her young son stays home alone; and there is Dror, another brother, and Vivienne, their mother, and also Maya, Marc's childhood girlfriend. In short, there are a lot of characters--perhaps too many--and each chapter picks up a new point of view. Those chapters jump around in time, too, so the complexities of certain relationships aren't made clear until the end. Ball's prose is compulsively readable, almost addictive, and she has a wicked sense of humor. But the novel doesn't quite add up: by the time you've met all the characters, the book is already ending, and nothing seems to have been resolved. Humor can't quite save this appealing novel that ends before it's fully begun.

      COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

popularity

340

links

• self:
  • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/2dbe9d8b-a0d4-4dd7-bd50-5353e20789ba/metadata
  • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json

id

2dbe9d8b-a0d4-4dd7-bd50-5353e20789ba

starRating

3.1

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/2363-1/{2DBE9D8B-A0D4-4DD7-BD50-5353E20789BA}IMG100.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/2363-1/{2DBE9D8B-A0D4-4DD7-BD50-5353E20789BA}IMG200.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/2363-1/{2DBE9D8B-A0D4-4DD7-BD50-5353E20789BA}IMG150.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/2363-1/{2DBE9D8B-A0D4-4DD7-BD50-5353E20789BA}IMG400.JPG
  • type: image/jpeg

isPublicPerformanceAllowed

False

languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: Fiction
2. • value: Literature

publishDateText

04/04/2017

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9780802124579

mediaType

eBook

shortDescription

A “funny, sexy, and smart” multigenerational saga following the secret lives of an (over) extended Jewish family—from Israel to America (Judy Blume).
 
More than oceans divide the Solomons. And now, it’s a scandal. Prodigal son Marc Solomon, an Israeli ex-Navy commando living in Los Angeles, is falsely accused of money laundering through his California investment firm. As his home is raided, Marc’s wife, Carolyn ―concealing her own dicey past―makes hopeless attempts to hold their family of five together. Not surprisingly, news of Marc’s disgrace makes its way from Santa Monica to a kibbutz on the Jordan River Valley, and the rest of the mortified Solomon clan: Marc’s self-absorbed wannabe movie star sister, Shira; his rich, powerful and fed-up construction magnet father, Yakov; his childhood sweetheart, Maya; and his brother-in-law Guy, a local ranger turned “mad artist.” As the secrets of the...

sortTitle

What to Do About the Solomons

crossRefId

3058884

publisher

Grove Atlantic

bisacCodes

1. • code: FIC019000
   • description: Fiction / Literary
2. • code: FIC045000
   • description: Fiction / Family Life / General
3. • code: FIC046000
   • description: Fiction / Jewish