Jami Attenberg
Jami Attenberg is the author of the novel The Kept Man and the short story collection Instant Love. She has written for the New York Times, New York, Print, Salon, Nylon, Nerve, and other publications. A Chicago native, she lives in Brooklyn.
All Books By Jami Attenberg
All Grown Up
- By: Jami Attenberg
- Narrator: Jami Attenberg
- Length: 5 hours 44 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: March 07, 2017
- Language: English
-
3.39(4618 ratings)
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Middlesteins comes a wickedly funny novel about a thirty-nine-year-old single, childfree woman who defies convention as she seeks connection. Who is Andrea Bern? When her therapist asks the question, Andrea knows the right things to say: she’s a designer, a friend, a daughter, a sister. But it’s what she leaves unsaid-she’s alone, a drinker, a former artist, a shrieker in bed, captain of the sinking ship that is her flesh-that feels the most true. Everyone around her seems to have an entirely different idea of what it means to be an adult: her best friend, Indigo, is getting married; her brother-who miraculously seems unscathed by their shared tumultuous childhood-and sister-in-law are having a hoped-for baby; and her friend Matthew continues to wholly devote himself to making dark paintings at the cost of being flat broke. But when Andrea’s niece finally arrives, born with a heartbreaking ailment, the Bern family is forced to reexamine what really matters. Will this drive them together or tear them apart? Told in gut-wrenchingly honest, mordantly comic vignettes, All Grown Up is a breathtaking display of Jami Attenberg’s power as a storyteller, a whip-smart examination of one woman’s life, lived entirely on her own terms.
... Read moreAll This Could Be Yours
- By: Jami Attenberg
- Narrator: Therese Plummer
- Length: 7 hours 45 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: October 22, 2019
- Language: English
-
3.37(7616 ratings)
“All hail Jami Attenberg, the queen of dysfunctional families.” —Refinery29
“Big Little Lies meets Succession in the scorching heat of the Big Easy . . . Money, power and family are touched upon through Attenberg’s emotional, humorous and sharply written accounts.” —Parade
“This is how you write a very good novel about a very bad man.” —New York Times
From critically acclaimed New York Times best-selling author Jami Attenberg comes a novel of family secrets: think the drama of Big Little Lies set in the heat of a New Orleans summer
‚ÄúIf I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am,‚Äù says Alex Tuchman of her parents. Now that her father is on his deathbed, Alex‚Äîa strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister–feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.) She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tightlipped mother, Barbra.
As Barbra fends off Alex’s unrelenting questions, she reflects on her tumultuous life with Victor. Meanwhile Gary, Alex’s brother, is incommunicado, trying to get his movie career off the ground in Los Angeles. And Gary’s wife, Twyla, is having a nervous breakdown, buying up all the lipstick in drug stores around New Orleans and bursting into crying fits. Dysfunction is at its peak. As each family member grapples with Victor’s history, they must figure out a way to move forward—with one another, for themselves, and for the sake of their children.
ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS is a timely, piercing exploration of what it means to be caught in the web of a toxic man who abused his power; it shows how those webs can tangle a family for generations and what it takes to—maybe, hopefully—break free. With her signature “sparkling prose” (Marie Claire) and incisive wit, Jami Attenberg deftly explores one of the most important subjects of our age.
... Read moreI Came All This Way to Meet You
- By: Jami Attenberg
- Narrator: Xe Sands
- Length: 6 hours 44 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: January 11, 2022
- Language: English
-
3.76(1457 ratings)
Named a Best Book of the Year by: Time * New Yorker * Sunday Times (UK)
From New York Times bestselling author Jami Attenberg comes a dazzling memoir about unlocking and embracing her creativity–and how it saved her life.
In this brilliant, fierce, and funny memoir of transformation, Jami Attenberg–described as a “master of modern fiction” (Entertainment Weekly) and the “poet laureate of difficult families” (Kirkus Reviews)–reveals the defining moments that pushed her to create a life, and voice, she could claim for herself. What does it take to devote oneself to art? What does it mean to own one’s ideas? What does the world look like for a woman moving solo through it?
As the daughter of a traveling salesman in the Midwest, Attenberg was drawn to a life on the road. Frustrated by quotidian jobs and hungry for inspiration and fresh experiences, her wanderlust led her across the country and eventually on travels around the globe. Through it all she grapples with questions of mortality, otherworldliness, and what we leave behind.
It is during these adventures that she begins to reflect on the experiences of her youth–the trauma, the challenges, the risks she has taken. Driving across America on self-funded book tours, sometimes crashing on couches when she was broke, she keeps writing: in researching articles for magazines, jotting down ideas for novels, and refining her craft, she grows as an artist and increasingly learns to trust her gut and, ultimately, herself.
Exploring themes of friendship, independence, class, and drive, I Came All This Way to Meet You is an inspiring story of finding one’s way home–emotionally, artistically, and physically–and an examination of art and individuality that will resonate with anyone determined to listen to their own creative calling.
... Read moreSaint Mazie
- By: Jami Attenberg
- Narrator: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hours 38 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: June 02, 2015
- Language: English
-
3.65(5834 ratings)
Meet Mazie Phillips: big-hearted and bawdy, she’s the truth-telling proprietress of The Venice, the famed New York City movie theater. It’s the Jazz Age, with romance and booze aplenty–even when Prohibition kicks in–and Mazie never turns down a night on the town. But her high spirits mask a childhood rooted in poverty, and her diary, always close at hand, holds her dearest secrets.
When the Great Depression hits, Mazie’s life is on the brink of transformation. Addicts and bums roam the Bowery; homelessness is rampant. If Mazie won’t help them, then who? When she opens the doors of The Venice to those in need, this ticket taking, fun-time girl becomes the beating heart of the Lower East Side, and in defining one neighborhood helps define the city.
Then, more than ninety years after Mazie began her diary, it’s discovered by a documentarian in search of a good story. Who was Mazie Phillips, really? A chorus of voices from the past and present fill in some of the mysterious blanks of her adventurous life.
Inspired by the life of a woman who was profiled in Joseph Mitchell’s classic Up in the Old Hotel, Saint Mazie is infused with Jami Attenberg’s signature wit, bravery, and heart. Mazie’s rise to “sainthood”–and her irrepressible spirit–is unforgettable.
... Read moreThe Melting Season
- By: Jami Attenberg
- Narrator: Emily Sutton-Smith
- Length: 7 hours 34 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
-
3.06(583 ratings)
From one of today’s hottest novelists and author of the bestselling The Middlesteins–a provocative story about friendship and self-discovery
Catherine Madison left her small town in Nebraska after her husband deserted her. She’s also left behind her most shameful secrets–of a family and a marriage that have plagued her with self-doubt. On the road, she’s trying to become a new person. But running away from the past isn’t as easy as she’d hoped. Her journey leads her to Las Vegas, where she forms surprising new friendships that compel her to reveal what she’d sworn she’d keep hidden, and teach her what human connection really means.
... Read moreThe Middlesteins
- By: Jami Attenberg
- Narrator: Molly Ringwald
- Length: 6 hours 56 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: October 23, 2012
- Language: English
-
3.44(17312 ratings)
When Richard abandons his wife, it is up to the next generation to take control. Robin, their schoolteacher daughter, is determined that her father pay for leaving Edie. Benny, an easy-going, pot-smoking family man, just wants to smooth things over. And Rachelle– a whippet thin perfectionist– is intent on saving her mother-in-law’s life, but this task proves even bigger than planning her twin children’s spectacular b’nai mitzvah party. Through it all, they wonder: do Edie’s devastating choices rest on her shoulders alone, or are others at fault, too?
With pitch-perfect prose, huge compassion, and sly humor, Jami Attenberg has given us an epic story of marriage, family, and obsession. The Middlesteins explores the hopes and heartbreaks of new and old love, the yearnings of Midwestern America, and our devastating, fascinating preoccupation with food.