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Family and Other Accidents: A Novel
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Author:
Goldhagen, Shari
Published:
Crown 2006
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Description
Separated by a decade and 200 points on their SAT scores, Jack and Connor Reed have a life in the Cleveland suburbs held together by spit and Chinese takeout. With his self-absorbed, over-the-hill parents dead by his twenty-fifth birthday, Jack has abandoned his own plans and returned to his parents’ house where he works marathon hours at his late father’s law firm, beds young paralegals, and throws money and advice at his teenage brother. Connor meanwhile wants nothing more than to leave the Midwest, start a family early, and do everything the way his parents didn’t. But over the years, through the car crashes and bad breakups, the illnesses and illicit affairs, both realize that while circumstances are sometimes beyond control, there are always choices to be made.
Family and Other Accidents tells the story of these brothers from their viewpoints as well as from those of their girlfriends, wives, and children. It is a story of what it means to be a family, to love unconditionally in the face of confusion, anger, and regret. Shari Goldhagen’s debut is a finely nuanced, universally resonant portrait of the ties, however strange or awkward, that bind families together through the decades.
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Subjects
Subjects
Fiction
Literature
More Details
Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
04/04/2006
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780385517683
ASIN:
B000GCFCJQ
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Shari Goldhagen. (2006). Family and Other Accidents: A Novel. Crown.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Shari Goldhagen. 2006. Family and Other Accidents: A Novel. Crown.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Shari Goldhagen, Family and Other Accidents: A Novel. Crown, 2006.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Shari Goldhagen. Family and Other Accidents: A Novel. Crown, 2006.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Grouped Work ID:
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Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 15:34:03
Date Updated:
Dec 06, 2020 02:41:09
Last Metadata Check:
Apr 21, 2024 06:55:24
Last Metadata Change:
Mar 16, 2024 11:06:47
Last Availability Check:
Apr 21, 2024 06:55:27
Last Availability Change:
Jun 13, 2021 06:47:18
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Apr 25, 2024 02:10:18

OverDrive Product Record

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      • value: brothers
      • value: mothers
      • value: mental health
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      • value: marriage
      • value: love
      • value: Coming of age
      • value: Death
      • value: families
      • value: love story
      • value: Collection
      • value: Dogs
      • value: Short Stories
      • value: pregnancy
      • value: mystery
      • value: Drama
      • value: Adoption
      • value: Divorce
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creators
      • role: Author
      • fileAs: Goldhagen, Shari
      • bioText: Shari Goldhagen holds an MFA from Ohio State and a journalism degree from Northwestern. A fellow of both Yaddo and MacDowell, she currently lives in New York City, where she has stalked celebrities for magazines, including The National Enquirer, Life & Style, and Celebrity Living.
      • name: Shari Goldhagen
imprint
Broadway Books
publishDate
2006-04-04T00:00:00-04:00
isOwnedByCollections
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title
Family and Other Accidents
fullDescription
Separated by a decade and 200 points on their SAT scores, Jack and Connor Reed have a life in the Cleveland suburbs held together by spit and Chinese takeout. With his self-absorbed, over-the-hill parents dead by his twenty-fifth birthday, Jack has abandoned his own plans and returned to his parents’ house where he works marathon hours at his late father’s law firm, beds young paralegals, and throws money and advice at his teenage brother. Connor meanwhile wants nothing more than to leave the Midwest, start a family early, and do everything the way his parents didn’t. But over the years, through the car crashes and bad breakups, the illnesses and illicit affairs, both realize that while circumstances are sometimes beyond control, there are always choices to be made.
Family and Other Accidents tells the story of these brothers from their viewpoints as well as from those of their girlfriends, wives, and children. It is a story of what it means to be a family, to love unconditionally in the face of confusion, anger, and regret. Shari Goldhagen’s debut is a finely nuanced, universally resonant portrait of the ties, however strange or awkward, that bind families together through the decades.
reviews
      • premium: False
      • source: Frederick Busch, author of North and The Night Inspector
      • content: "This novel of brotherly love--of brothers, of their loves, of their lovers--explores the intersection of domestic urgencies and erotic requirements. The dialogue is witty, the sex is constant, and the wounded, small child inside each character is persuasively wrought. Shari Goldhagen's writing is sympathetic and smart."
      • premium: False
      • source: Bill Roorbach, author of The Smallest Color and Big Bend
      • content: "Jack and Connor are by turns joyous and sad, wise and foolish, fragile and tough, kind and mean, even cruel--but they are always human, always fresh, always surprising, always lovable even when we least want to love them."
      • premium: False
      • source: Lee Abbott, author of All Things, All At Once and Love Is the Crooked Thing
      • content: "Shari Goldhagen has the sharp eye and the keen ear--not to mention the generous heart--to make these characters' stories ours."
      • premium: False
      • source: Michelle Herman, author of Dog
      • content: "Goldhagen illuminates with some of the deftest, unchillingly ironic, emotionally complex, understated, subtly tender, winning writer I have ever read."
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        January 9, 2006
        Five years after their father dies of a heart attack, Jack and Connor Reed's mother dies of an aneurysm, and Jack, 25, returns to Cleveland to take care of 15-year-old Connor and to work in his late father's corporate law firm. This debut novel from Goldhagen, a celebrity reporter, spirals episodically through two-plus decades of Connor and Jack's fraught fraternity, showing the aftermath of loss in devastatingly efficient snapshots. Goldhagen cuts smoothly between the two men's perspectives, and widens out to include Jack's wife, Mona; Connor's wife, Laine; and, later, their children. Domestic disconnection and dissatisfaction are the rule, with marriages and pregnancies occurring more by chance than choice. Unsentimental and emotionally riveting, this is a portrait of the love between people who are not particularly good at loving. Even when Connor gets ill and tells Jack, "I tell everyone you're the only parent I ever had," their connection remains inarticulate.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        February 1, 2006
        This debut novel begins in the suburbs of Cleveland, OH, with orphaned brothers Jack and Connor Reed. The older and supposedly wiser Jack finds himself the caretaker of teenaged Connor, who suspects that Jack has put aside his own future and taken a job in their deceased father's law firm so that he can raise Connor in the family home. Connor knows Jack could do much better as a big-city lawyer and senses the resentment Jack must harbor for him. The two young men grown up and grow apart as Connor goes off to school and Jack asks Mona, the girlfriend he may or may not really love, to move in with him to help fill up the lonely house. As the years pass and girlfriends come and go, Jack and Connor remain tied together. Goldhagen does a wonderful job of describing the familial bond and all the ups and downs and oddities that we consider family. This would also make a good book group selection. Highly recommended." -Leann Restaino, Girard, OH"

        Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        February 1, 2006
        After his mother dies, 25-year-old Jack Reed returns to Cleveland to work at his late father's law firm and raise his brother, Connor, who is still in high school. Jack becomes a workaholic with a parade of women streaming in and out of his life, while lonely Connor feels he is a burden to his brother. Wary of their emotions, the two brothers avoid talking about the devastating events that have profoundly changed their lives, instead bickering over minutiae and suffering from an array of physical ailments. Connor eventually marries a leggy Harvard grad and immediately sets out to create the family he never had, while Jack becomes involved with a red-haired reporter whom he's not sure he loves. As the years pass and their partners change, as Jack becomes immensely wealthy and Connor gets sick, the brothers' bond becomes the central fact of their lives and one they finally acknowledge. In this immensely assured first novel, Goldhagen uses a wealth of skillful techniques to create an indelible portrait of the flawed but loving Reed brothers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)

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shortDescription
Separated by a decade and 200 points on their SAT scores, Jack and Connor Reed have a life in the Cleveland suburbs held together by spit and Chinese takeout. With his self-absorbed, over-the-hill parents dead by his twenty-fifth birthday, Jack has abandoned his own plans and returned to his parents’ house where he works marathon hours at his late father’s law firm, beds young paralegals, and throws money and advice at his teenage brother. Connor meanwhile wants nothing more than to leave the Midwest, start a family early, and do everything the way his parents didn’t. But over the years, through the car crashes and bad breakups, the illnesses and illicit affairs, both realize that while circumstances are sometimes beyond control, there are always choices to be made.
Family and Other Accidents tells the story of these brothers from their viewpoints as well as from those of their girlfriends, wives, and children. It is a story of what it means to be a...
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publisher
Crown
bisacCodes
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      • description: Fiction / Literary
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      • description: Fiction / Family Life / General