Swell

Living in Tribeca after September 11th, Sue Glassman discovers that she is pregnant with her third child and quickly makes a series of decisions:

--Sell the family's soot-filled Tribeca apartment.

--Accept her father-in-law's gift of a beach house in the Rockaways.

--Honor her mother-in-law's dying wish that she convert to Judaism.

The next year in the Glassmans' lives brings more change than they could have predicted. The Rockaways are in the midst of a great upheaval--populated by first responders and their families, the community is still trying to pick up the pieces of their lives in the aftermath of great tragedy. Then, one day, the 92-year-old former owner of the house show up to claim it for herself.

Returning to the same territory as her previous books, From Rockaway and Kiss Out, Jill Eisenstadt tells an irreverent, off-kilter tale of a family figuring out its next chapter.

“"Eisenstadt's detailed and eclectic novel takes readers to a dilapidated oceanfront house full of secrets, ghosts, and an old woman's cast-off tchotchkes....In this touching portrait of ordinary people grappling with the aftershocks of 9/11--memorials, uncertainty, death, and a new life--the emotional upheaval of a national tragedy leaves no one unaffected." -- Publishers Weekly”

"Comic, dark...layered with ghosts and guilt and demons. It plays with our notions of heroes and heroism, and jabs at our one-dimensional instinct to deify in the face of tragedy."--Casey Barrett, Village Voice

"With tremendous tenderness, Eisenstadt captures the traumatized Rockaway of the early 2000s in swirling Technicolor....A whimsical portrait of a still-raw community."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Swell combines comedy and tragedy, chaos and a longing for order."--Hillel Italie, Associated Press
"Eisenstadt's detailed and eclectic novel takes readers to a dilapidated oceanfront house full of secrets, ghosts, and an old woman's cast-off tchotchkes....In this touching portrait of ordinary people grappling with the aftershocks of 9/11--memorials, uncertainty, death, and a new life--the emotional upheaval of a national tragedy leaves no one unaffected."
--Publishers Weekly
"In her new novel, Swell, Jill Eisenstadt comes back to Rockaway, and this visit revolves around historical events of recent decades....Swell is anchored in real understanding of the people of Rockaway, what they went through in those years and their recourse to black humor."--Newsday
"Mordantly funny."
--Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times
"Moving, dark, and funny."--David Gutowski, Largehearted Boy
"With a pitch-perfect narrative voice and plenty of humor, Eisenstadt captures the lives of her Mets-loving and Yankee-hating characters in vivid detail."--Booklist

Jill Eisenstadt is the author of the novels From Rockaway and Kiss Out. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Elle, Boston Review, New York Magazine, and BOMB. She lives in Brooklyn.

Living in Tribeca after September 11th, Sue Glassman discovers that she is pregnant with her third child and quickly makes a series of decisions:--Sell the family's soot-filled Tribeca apartment.--Accept her father-in-law's gift of a beach house in the Rockaways.--Honor her mother-in-law's dying wish that she convert to Judaism.The next year in the Glassmans' lives brings more change than they could have predicted. The Rockaways are in the midst of a great upheaval--populated by first responders and their families, the community is still trying to pick up the pieces of their lives in the aftermath of great tragedy. Then, one day, the 92-year-old former owner of the house show up to claim it for herself.Returning to the same territory as her previous books, From Rockaway and Kiss Out , Jill Eisenstadt tells an irreverent, off-kilter tale of a family figuring out its next chapter.

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