We All Love the Beautiful Girls

Who suffers when the privileged fall?

One frigid winter night, Mia and Michael Slate's comfortable world dissolves in an instant when they discover that their best friend has cheated them out of their life savings. At the same time, a few doors down, their teenaged son passes out in the snow at a party--a mistake whose consequences will shatter not just their family, but an entire community.

In this arresting, masterful page-turner shot through with fierce, clear-eyed compassion and a sublime insight into human fragility, award-winning novelist Proulx explores the savage underpinnings of betrayal, infidelity, and revenge--and a multilayered portrait of love, in all its glory, that no reader will soon forget.

“"With We All Love the Beautiful Girls, Proulx ... moves firmly into John Cheever territory, exploring with a keen eye and incisive prose the suburbs of quiet desperation, peeling back facades to reveal the desperation and violence that lurk just below the surface. When that violence comes to a head, the results are as devastating as they are unexpected."-- Toronto Star”

"We All Love the Beautiful Girls has the ability to leave a reader breathless. The plot twists are daring. The characters and their dialogue capture the ways in which adversity can alter people. Lovers' wounds are plastered across every page and the veneer of civility becomes shockingly thin. And yet, in the end, love, decency, and forgiveness triumph. Think of the 1986 David Lynch film, Blue Velvet, in which brutality lurks just beneath the surface of everyday life, then erupts ferociously before disappearing back into the depths."--Quill & Quire
"We All Love the Beautiful Girls is a gripping tale of love gone awry. In a lively plot filled with twists and turns, Joanne Proulx's characters flail about and pay a high price for their impulsiveness and rage. This is a book to keep readers glued to the page, and enthralled by the author's skill and wisdom."--Lynne Sharon Schwartz, author of Two-Part Inventions
"An emotional thrill-ride that manages to capture the tenderness and rage unique to adolescence and middle-age, the heartbreak of first love, and the fragility of even the most stable-seeming marriage."--Zoe Whittall, bestselling author of The Best Kind of People
"Believe the hype about this family novel that's as complex as it is creative."--Hello Giggles
"Provocative...Gorgeously written, Proulx's narrative offers a fascinating plot and both a searing exploration of the butterfly effect of trauma and the uncanny persistence of love in improbable circumstances."--Publisher's Weekly
"The novel's visuals are vivid and well realized, the characters and their dramas cinematic."--New York Times Book Rreview
"Unflinching."--Harper's Bazaar, Best New Books
"When I finished this novel, I wanted to tell everyone I knew to read it. It is one of the best, most important books I've read in a very long time."--The Globe and Mail
"With We All Love the Beautiful Girls, Proulx ... moves firmly into John Cheever territory, exploring with a keen eye and incisive prose the suburbs of quiet desperation, peeling back facades to reveal the desperation and violence that lurk just below the surface. When that violence comes to a head, the results are as devastating as they are unexpected."--Toronto Star
Proulx's novel covers a lot of territory, with several twists and turns... The story excels in its depiction of women."--amNY

Joanne Proulx's first novel Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet won Canada's Sunburst Award for Fantastic Fiction and was named a best debut by The Globe and Mail and Kirkus Reviews. A graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars, Joanne lives, writes and teaches in Ottawa, Canada.

Who suffers when the privileged fall? One frigid winter night, Mia and Michael Slate's comfortable world dissolves in an instant when they discover that their best friend has cheated them out of their life savings. At the same time, a few doors down, their teenaged son passes out in the snow at a party--a mistake whose consequences will shatter not just their family, but an entire community. In this arresting, masterful page-turner shot through with fierce, clear-eyed compassion and a sublime insight into human fragility, award-winning novelist Proulx explores the savage underpinnings of betrayal, infidelity, and revenge--and a multilayered portrait of love, in all its glory, that no reader will soon forget.

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