Book details

Nuclear Family

A Tragicomic Novel in Letters

Author: Susanna Fogel

Nuclear Family

Nuclear Family

$19.00

About This Book

From the director of The Spy Who Dumped Me, Susanna Fogel, comes a comedic novel about a fractured family of New England Jews and their discontents, over the course of three decades. Told...

Page Count
208
On Sale
07/18/2017

Book Details

From the director of The Spy Who Dumped Me, Susanna Fogel, comes a comedic novel about a fractured family of New England Jews and their discontents, over the course of three decades. Told entirely in letters to a heroine we never meet, we get to know the Fellers through their check-ins with Julie: their thank-you notes, letters of condolence, family gossip, and good old-fashioned familial passive-aggression.

Together, their missives - some sardonic, others absurd, others heartbreaking - weave a tapestry of a very modern family trying (and often failing) to show one another they care.

The titular "Nuclear Family" includes, among many others:

A narcissistic former-child-prodigy father who has taken up haiku writing in his old age and his new wife, a traditional Chinese woman whose attempts to help her stepdaughter find a man include FedExing her silk gowns from Filene's Basement.

Their six-year-old son, Stuart, whose favorite condiment is truffle oil and who wears suits to bed.

Julie's mother, a psychologist who never remarried but may be in love with her arrogant Rabbi and overshares about everything, including the threesome she had with Dutch grad students in 1972.

Imprint Publisher

Holt Paperbacks

ISBN

9781250165237

In The News

“This brilliant patchwork portrait of a modern family dynamic puzzled together through disparate, often passive-aggressive messaging rings heart-achingly true in our age of family diplomacy by text and email. Fortunately for us it’s also hilarious." —Nick Offerman

“[P]olitically incorrect, but u prob won’t mind b/c other parts are so funny.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Fogel’s novel offers plenty of glimpses—both humorous and endearing—into the life of a single woman with a well-meaning, if clueless, family.” —Publishers Weekly

“Sharp, funny, and painful. Just like your actual family.” —Simon Rich

About the Creators

Nuclear Family

Nuclear Family

$19.00