We Are Not Ourselves: A Novel
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As an Irish immigrant in Queens in 1941, Eileen has dreamed of more in her life—but when she and her family seem to be moving closer to that dream, devastation hits and they must learn how to not only hold on to their reality, but to each other.
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 how much alcohol has been consumed. From an early age, Eileen wished that she lived somewhere else. She sets her sights on upper class Bronxville, New York, and an American Dream is born.
Driven by this longing, Eileen places her stock and love in Ed Leary, a handsome young scientist, and with him begins a family. Over the years Eileen encourages her husband to want more: a better job, better friends, a better house. It slowly becomes clear that his growing reluctance is part of a deeper, more incomprehensive psychological shift. An inescapable darkness enters their lives, and Eileen and Ed and their son Connell try desperately to hold together a semblance of the reality they have known, and to preserve, against long odds, an idea they have cherished of the future.
Described by The New York Times Book Review as "A long, gorgeous epic, full of love and caring...one of the best novels you'll read this year," We Are Not Ourselves is a testament to our greatest desires and our greatest frailties. Through the lives of these characters, Thomas charts the story of the American Century. The result is, "stunning...The joys of this book are the joys of any classic work of literature—for that is what this is destined to become—superbly rendered small moments that capture both an individual life and the universality of that person's experience" (The Washington Post).
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Matthew Thomas. (2014). We Are Not Ourselves: A Novel. S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Matthew Thomas. 2014. We Are Not Ourselves: A Novel. S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Matthew Thomas, We Are Not Ourselves: A Novel. S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books, 2014.
MLA Citation (style guide)Matthew Thomas. We Are Not Ourselves: A Novel. S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books, 2014.
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- bioText: 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. His New York Times bestselling novel We Are Not Ourselves has been shortlisted for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction and longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. He lives with his wife and twin children in New Jersey.
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- The instant New York Times bestseller The Washington Post calls a "stunning...superbly rendered" novel, and Entertainment Weekly describes as "a gripping family saga, maybe the best...since The Corrections."
As an Irish immigrant in Queens in 1941, Eileen has dreamed of more in her life—but when she and her family seem to be moving closer to that dream, devastation hits and they must learn how to not only hold on to their reality, but to each other.
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 how much alcohol has been consumed. From an early age, Eileen wished that she lived somewhere else. She sets her sights on upper class Bronxville, New York, and an American Dream is born.
Driven by this longing, Eileen places her stock and love in Ed Leary, a handsome young scientist, and with him begins a family. Over the years Eileen encourages her husband to want more: a better job, better friends, a better house. It slowly becomes clear that his growing reluctance is part of a deeper, more incomprehensive psychological shift. An inescapable darkness enters their lives, and Eileen and Ed and their son Connell try desperately to hold together a semblance of the reality they have known, and to preserve, against long odds, an idea they have cherished of the future.
Described by The New York Times Book Review as "A long, gorgeous epic, full of love and caring...one of the best novels you'll read this year," We Are Not Ourselves is a testament to our greatest desires and our greatest frailties. Through the lives of these characters, Thomas charts the story of the American Century. The result is, "stunning...The joys of this book are the joys of any classic work of literature—for that is what this is destined to become—superbly rendered small moments that capture both an individual life and the universality of that person's experience" (The Washington Post). - reviews
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Starred review from April 21, 2014
In his powerful and significant debut novel, Thomas masterfully evokes one woman’s life in the context of a brilliantly observed Irish working-class milieu. Eileen Tumulty was born in the early ’40s, the only child and dutiful caretaker of alcoholic parents. As a young woman, she hopes to leave her family’s dingy apartment in Woodside, Queens, and move up the social ladder. Eileen falls in love with and marries Ed Leary, a quiet neuroscientist whom she sees as the means to an upper-middle-class future. But Ed is dedicated to pure scientific research, and he turns down lucrative job offers from pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions. The couple’s apartment in Jackson Heights is a step up from Eileen’s parents’ apartment, but she wants a home in tony Westchester County. Later, Eileen pursues an arduous career as a nursing administrator to secure a future for their son, Connell. But once she gets her gracious but dilapidated fixer-upper in Bronxville, in southern Westchester, Ed is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, and the family slowly endures “the encroaching of a fathomless darkness.” Thomas works on a large canvas to create a memorable depiction of Eileen’s vibrant spirit, the intimacy of her love for Ed, and the desperate stoicism she exhibits as reality narrows her dreams. Her life, observed over a span of six decades, comes close to a definitive portrait of American social dynamics in the 20th century. Thomas’s emotional truthfulness combines with the novel’s texture and scope to create an unforgettable narrative.
- premium: True
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June 15, 2014
An Irish-American family in New York City pursues simple dreams in a long and only partially satisfying first novel.Thomas' debut opens promisingly with the outsize character of Big Mike Tumulty, an Irish immigrant and bar-stool sage possessed of "a terrible charisma." The humor and brisk pace of this well-drawn section too rarely recur in the many dry, dour pages that follow. Mike's daughter and the book's heroine, Eileen, arrives in 1941 and grows up in a household where affection and money are scarce. She pursues a nursing career, marries a teacher named Ed Leary and has a son, Connell. Eileen is driven to improve their housing, from rented rooms in a multifamily Queens home to owning that home and finally the big move to the costly suburb of Bronxville. Only a few pages later, at the book's midpoint, they learn that Ed, at 51, has early-onset Alzheimer's, "the most virulent kind....It dismantles motor functions and speech as it erases the memory." Thomas, who has relied to this point on thinly linked vignettes, is most effective in the sustained picture of Ed's terrible decline and Eileen's fierce struggle to maintain his dignity and her control. And a story almost painfully confined to the family trio now acquires a couple of colorful characters in a healer who speaks through the spirit Vywamus and a hired man named Sergei who offers strength and the chance of new passion.Despite its epic size and aspirations, the novel is underpopulated and often underwritten, a quality that does make its richer moments stand out while stoking the appetite for more of those in fewer pages.COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Starred review from August 1, 2014
This epic and emotionally draining novel is centered on the life of Eileen Tumulty who lives in Queens, NY, in the mid-20th century. An only child of Irish parents, Eileen is smart and ambitious and looking for a better life for herself. She's moving ahead in her career in nursing when she meets and marries Ed Leary, a PhD student in neurochemistry who decides he will teach at a community college despite more lucrative and prestigious offers. As years go by and the neighborhood changes, Eileen is desperate to move from their multiple-family home to the suburbs, but the entrenched and increasingly eccentric Ed is adamant about staying put. The house they finally move to is beyond their means and needs work, and though Ed has the skills, it soon becomes apparent that the project is beyond him. A doctor's visit reveals deeper trouble that presages Ed's long, slow, painful decline. VERDICT The debut author has created a memorable character in Eileen, who is both intelligent and clueless, focusing on her ideals and fantasies and attempting vainly to make reality conform to her aspirations. The depiction of Ed's illness is realistic, powerful, artistically delivered, and occasionally humorous, and readers will be drawn in. [See Prepub Alert, 3/3/14; see also Thomas's address to librarians at an S. & S. Adult Librarian Preview, p. 90.]--James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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April 1, 2014
An epic tale about an Irish American couple and the constraints of the American dream, this first novel is benefiting from tremendous in-house enthusiasm. Eileen Tumulty, raised by her immigrant parents in Woodside, NY, in the 1940s and 1950s, is determined not to settle for some boisterous, glad-handing type. Serious-minded scientist Ed Leary seems exactly the right sort to carry her to the larger world, but their marriage founders as she realizes that he really doesn't care about increasingly bigger, better homes, cars, and jobs. The portrait of a marriage and of a crucial time in American history; great for book clubs.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
August 1, 2014
This epic and emotionally draining novel is centered on the life of Eileen Tumulty who lives in Queens, NY, in the mid-20th century. An only child of Irish parents, Eileen is smart and ambitious and looking for a better life for herself. She's moving ahead in her career in nursing when she meets and marries Ed Leary, a PhD student in neurochemistry who decides he will teach at a community college despite more lucrative and prestigious offers. As years go by and the neighborhood changes, Eileen is desperate to move from their multiple-family home to the suburbs, but the entrenched and increasingly eccentric Ed is adamant about staying put. The house they finally move to is beyond their means and needs work, and though Ed has the skills, it soon becomes apparent that the project is beyond him. A doctor's visit reveals deeper trouble that presages Ed's long, slow, painful decline. VERDICT The debut author has created a memorable character in Eileen, who is both intelligent and clueless, focusing on her ideals and fantasies and attempting vainly to make reality conform to her aspirations. The depiction of Ed's illness is realistic, powerful, artistically delivered, and occasionally humorous, and readers will be drawn in. [See Prepub Alert, 3/3/14; see also Thomas's address to librarians at an S. & S. Adult Librarian Preview, p. 90.]--James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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As an Irish immigrant in Queens in 1941, Eileen has dreamed of more in her life—but when she and her family seem to be moving closer to that dream, devastation hits and they must learn how to not only hold on to their reality, but to each other.
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 how much alcohol has been consumed. From an early age, Eileen wished that she lived somewhere else. She sets her sights on upper class Bronxville, New York, and an American Dream is born.
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