Lauren Grodstein

Amy Webb is a chef. Or rather, she was a chef.  Somewhere along the way she also became a wife and a stepmother and an emergency contact, and the part of her that was a chef disappeared entirely– along with her sense of self.  Which is why she is currently in the republic of Georgia, on a mission to find a lost dog named Angel, and, more importantly, the life’s purpose she once took for granted.   For months, Amy has escaped by watching Youtube videos of Angel walking the children of Tbilisi to school.  When Angel goes missing, Amy volunteers to go find him. The fact that her husband may be having (another) affair and her stepson is away at college probably has something to do with it.  Who is Amy, after all, if she’s not taking care of other people?   But to her surprise, Angel proves elusive, and while she does make friends with a number of stray dogs, what she finds in Tblisi is entirely human. Is she happy in her marriage? What happened to her career? Why doesn’t she ever cook anymore, even just for herself?    Helping her on this journey of self-discovery is a rebellious teenager, a mysterious and attractive Russian, and several post-Soviet grandmothers. And, of course, the rich food and culture and complicated politics of Georgia itself.   After a lifetime of looking away from her own needs and appetites, Amy is forced to confront what she really wants and how to finally find herself -   And a dog.    

Pete Dizinoff has spent years working toward a life that would be, by all measures, deemed successful. A skilled internist, he's built a thriving practice in suburban New Jersey. He has a devoted wife, a network of close friends, and an impressive house, and most important, he has a son, Alec, on whom he's pinned all his hopes. Pete has afforded Alec every opportunity, bailed him out of close calls with the law, and even ensured his acceptance into a good college. But Pete never counted on the wild card: Laura, his best friend's daughter--ten years older than Alec, irresistibly beautiful, with a past so shocking that it's never spoken of. When Laura sets her sights on Alec, Pete sees his plans for his son not just unraveling but being destroyed completely. Believing he has only the best of intentions, he sets out to derail this romance and rescue his son. He could never have foreseen how his whole world would shatter in the process. Lauren Grodstein delivers a riveting story in the tradition of The Ice Storm, American Beauty, and Little Children, charting a father's fall from grace as he struggles to save his family, his reputation, and himself.

“Lauren Grodstein breaks your heart, then miraculously pieces it back together so it’s bigger—and stronger—than before.”  —Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You How can a woman learn to let go of the people she loves the most?    Karen Neulander, a successful New York political consultant and single mother, has always been fiercely protective of her son, Jacob, now six. She’s had to be: when Jacob’s father, Dave, found out Karen was pregnant and made it clear that fatherhood wasn’t in his plans, Karen walked out of the relationship, never telling Dave her intention was to raise their child alone. But now Jake is asking to meet his dad, and with good reason: Karen is dying. When she finally calls her ex, she’s shocked to find Dave ecstatic about the son he never knew he had. First, he can’t meet Jake fast enough, and then he can’t seem to leave him alone. Karen quickly grows anxious as she watches Dave insinuate himself into Jake’s life just as her own strength and hold on Jake grow more tenuous. As she struggles to play out her last days in the “right” way for Jake, Karen wrestles with the knowledge that the only thing she cannot bring herself to do for her son—let his father become a permanent part of his life—is the thing he needs from her the most. With heart-wrenching poignancy, unexpected wit, and mordant humor, Lauren Grodstein has created an unforgettable story about parenthood, sacrifice, and life itself.  

The Explanation for Everything explores humankind's insatiable search for meaning, the risks and rewards of faith, and the salvation that love can offer us all. Lauren Grodstein's New York Times bestselling novel A Friend of the Family was hailed as "such an incisive diagnosis of aspirational America that someone should hand out copies at Little League games and ballet recitals" (The Washington Post). Now, Grodstein has created another insightful and gripping morality tale about love, loss, and faith. Biology professor Andy Waite is finally beginning to pick up the pieces years after a drunk driver killed his wife. Between finishing his research and taking care of his young daughters, he has reasons to get through the day, and most days he does without falling apart. That is, until a young female student enters his life and turns it upside down. Melissa Potter is a passionate evangelist hoping to write the definitive paper about Creationism. She makes Andy's Darwinian certainty - and his grief - a personal challenge. As she chips away at his fervent atheism, he begins to fully realize the emptiness that he's been living with for too long. But when Andy's relationship with Melissa becomes romantic, the boundaries he's worked so hard to maintain - personally and professionally - blur. And soon it's unclear what kind of deliverance he needs. The Explanation for Everything explores humankind's insatiable search for meaning, the risks and rewards of faith, and the salvation that love can offer us all.

It's a Saturday morning in Brooklyn. Joel Miller, age twenty-eight, stands outside his locked bathroom door. Behind it are his girlfriend Lisa, a Dixie cup, and a pregnancy test. While she stalls for time, Miller is left in his hallway to wonder and for the results of the test, for the pieces of his addled life to come together, for some kind of divine intervention to guide his actions when Lisa finally emerges. Thus begins Lauren Grodstein's beguiling debut novel, a wise, wonderfully assured journey deep into the heart of the commitmentphobic male. Awaiting test results that could determine his future, Miller finds himself replaying all he has seen of love so far. There was his father Stan's awkward balancing act between doting father and failed husband, and his mother Bay's refusal to accept that Stan was never coming back. There was his playboy friend Grant's devastation upon falling for the one woman he couldn't have. And most of all, there was Miller's own prior relationship—with Blair, the aloof beauty he can't stop thinking about, the one who got away. With past and present colliding in his hallway, Miller begins to realize just how little he really knows about intimacy, love and potential fatherhood—and more important, about what he's going to do next. Reproduction Is the Flaw of Love fearlessly charts the romantic odyssey of one endearing New York bachelor, and in so doing illuminates some universal truths about family, loyalty, devotion, and love. Previously published as Reproduction Is the Flaw of Love

A heart-wrenching story of love and defiance set in the Warsaw Ghetto, based on the actual archives kept by those determined to have their stories survive World War II On a November day in 1940, Adam Paskow becomes a prisoner in the Warsaw Ghetto, where the Jews of the city are cut off from their former lives and held captive by Nazi guards, and await an uncertain fate. Weeks later, he is approached by a mysterious figure with a surprising request: Will he join a secret group of archivists working to preserve the truth of what is happening inside these walls? Adam agrees and begins taking testimonies from his students, friends, and neighbors. He learns about their childhoods and their daydreams, their passions and their fears, their desperate strategies for safety and survival. The stories form a portrait of endurance in a world where no choices are good ones. One of the people Adam interviews is his flatmate Sala Wiskoff, who is stoic, determined, and funny—and married with two children. Over the months of their confinement, in the presence of her family, Adam and Sala fall in love. As they desperately carve out intimacy, their relationship feels both impossible and vital, their connection keeping them alive. But when Adam discovers a possible escape from the Ghetto, he is faced with an unbearable choice: Whom can he save, and at what cost? Inspired by the testimony-gathering project with the code name Oneg Shabbat, New York Times bestselling author Lauren Grodstein draws readers into the lives of people living on the edge. Told with immediacy and heart, We Must Not Think of Ourselves is a piercing story of love, determination, and sacrifice for the many fans of literary World War II fiction such as Kristin Harmel’s The Book of Lost Names and Lauren Fox’s Send for Me.