One for Sorrow, Two for Joy
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Simon & Schuster
Published:5th Jun '07
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
When Claire glances at her hand resting against her kitchen counter and sees her skin is the exact shade as the Formica, she realizes that she has become indistinguishable from her kitchen. Moments later she announces to her husband, a harmless but hyper-literal entomologist that she is leaving.
As a crossword puzzle writer, Claire has made a profession of finding definitions; now, she must face the fact that she has lost her own. By the end of the next day, she is heading to a small town on the coast of Ireland to visit her sister, Noelle, a college dropout she hasn't seen since their mother's death three years ago. What follows is the journey of a daughter facing the truth of her family, a wife admitting her marriage wasn't perfect, a linguist rediscovering the beauty and possibility of words.
"Elise Juska is so good at describing people, places, and moments that you not only picture them, you feel them. A novel of heart, humor, and intelligence, One for Sorrow, Two for Joy is a true pleasure to read."
-- Curtis Sittenfeld, bestselling author of Prep
"With pen-not-pencil confidence and skill, Elise Juska has deftly crafted the puzzle of a crossword creator's struggle to understand the mysteries of family, love, and self worth."
-- Suzanne Strempek Shea, author of Becoming Finola
"Elise Juska has written a wry, wise, and heartfelt novel about the ways in which we grieve. Her characters are rich with the kind of complications that make a novel sing. Juska's passion for language, and for the ways in which it tries, and sometimes fails, to represent who we are, give this lovely book a resonance that crosses not only family lines, but geographical borders, too."
-- Marisa Silver, author of No Direction Home
ISBN: 9781416516927
Dimensions: 216mm x 140mm x 15mm
Weight: 305g
288 pages