The Middlesteins (audiobook)

“The Middlesteins had me from its very first pages, but it wasn’t until its final pages that I fully appreciated the range of Attenberg’s sympathy and the artistry of her storytelling.”

“I couldn’t help absolutely devouring The Middlesteins. This smorgasbord of a book about food, family, love, sex, and loss is like the Jewish The Corrections, yet menschier and with a heart—and it’s hilarious!”

“Jami Attenberg has written a brilliant novel in The Middlesteins, as blazing, ferocious, and great-hearted as anything I’ve read. For anyone who has ever known heartbreak, the terrible love of a family, or a passion so deep you think it’ll kill you, The Middlesteins will blow you away.”

“Jami Attenberg has a gift for making you sympathize with each and every one of her characters. The result is a rich family portrait that’s sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious, and gripping all the way through. The Middlesteins are every bit as complex and contradictory as your family or mine. I’m still thinking about them long after I turned the final page.”

“Expansive heart and sly wit…Throughout this poignant novel, the characters wrestle with two defining questions: What do we owe each other after a life together? What do we owe ourselves?”

“Jami Attenberg’s comic-tragic portrait of The Middlesteins, a quirky Midwestern Jewish family collapsing under burdens of betrayal, desire, and obesity, is delish.”

“Deftly comedic and acutely sensitive, Jami Attenberg confronts our profound hunger for meaning and love in The Middlesteins…This book generates disturbing, hilarious, and tender revelations.”

“The Middlesteins is a truly original American novel, at once topical and universally timeless. Jami Attenberg has created a Midwestern Jewish family who are quintessentially familiar but fiercely, mordantly idiosyncratic. This novel will make you laugh, cry, cringe in recognition, and crave lamb-cumin noodles. This is a stunningly wonderful book.”

“Jami Attenberg writes with startling honesty and haunting compassion about characters caught between desire and obligation. Blunt and beautifully written,The Middlesteins peels back the layers of one family’s struggle to hold together even as its members fall apart, examining the commitments and betrayals, the guilt and grievances, the wounds and recoveries. Told with great hope and humor, this is a novel about fear and forgiveness, blame and acceptance, the roles we yearn to escape, and the bonds that prove unbreakable. It’s a wonderful book.”

“The Middlesteins, the novel, is great literature: in lucid and lustrous prose, Jami Attenberg tells a flawlessly paced, profound story that is equally intimate and universal. And the Middlesteins, the family, are great company: warm, tragic, funny, and so deeply, complexly, entirely human that I could almost swear I grew up down the street from them. I read Attenberg’s book as voraciously as Edie Middlestein downs her surreptitious feasts, and now I’m insatiable for more from this brilliant author.”

“Attenberg’s characters’ thoughts—Richard and Benny in particular—seem utterly real, and her wry, observational humor often hits sideways rather than head-on…A wonderfully messy and layered family portrait.”

“Deeply satisfying…A sharp-tongued, sweet-natured masterpiece of Jewish family life.”

“An irresistible family portrait with piquant social commentary. Kinetic with hilarity and anguish, romance and fury, Attenberg’s rapidly consumed yet nourishing novel anatomizes our insatiable hunger for love, meaning, and hope.”

“Somewhat reminiscent of the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding…Ringwald’s crisp voice brings listeners right into the family crises with her clear, nicely paced reading…Ringwald makes slight adjustments in cadence to signal character shifts. She puts a lighthearted lilt into her voice to capture such humorous episodes as when food-obsessed Edie texts her husband that she is at a well-known Chicago hot-dog restaurant. Give this to fans of domestic fiction.”

“Attenberg finds ample comic moments in this wry tale about an unraveling marriage. She has a great ear for dialog, and the novel is perfectly paced…She seamlessly weaves comedy and tragedy in this warm and engaging family saga of love and loss.”