Description
The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years. Their house has seen thirteen children grown and gone‚Äîand some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit‚Äôs East Side, the loss of a father.The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to the suburbs. But now, as ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a tenth of its mortgage. The Turner children are called home to decide its fate and to reckon with how each of their pasts haunt‚Äîand shape‚Äîtheir family‚Äôs future.The Turner House brings us a colourful, complicated brood full of love and pride, sacrifice and unlikely inheritances. It’s a striking examination of the price we pay for our dreams and futures, and the ways in which our families bring us home.Shortlisted for the National Book Award for FictionPublisher‚Äôs Weekly Best Book of 2015A New York Times Editors‚Äô ChoiceOprah‚Äôs O Magazine Top 10 Books of 2015Longlisted for the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize‚ÄòIn this assured and memorable novel, [Flournoy] provides the feeling of knowing a family from the inside out, as we would wish to know our own.‚Äô ‚ÄîNew York Times Book Review‚ÄòFlournoy‚Äôs debut is a lively, thoroughly engaging family saga with a cast of fully realized characters.‚Äô ‚ÄîPublishers Weekly, starred review‚ÄòAn elegant and assured debut.‚Äô ‚ÄîWashington Post‚ÄòFlournoy‚Äôs strength lies in her meticulous examination of each character‚Äôs inner life.‚Äô ‚ÄîKirkus Reviews‚ÄòIt is Flournoy’s finely tuned empathy that infuses her characters with a radiant humanity.‚Äô ‚ÄîO, the Oprah Magazine‚ÄòPoignant and timely.‚Äô ‚ÄîSan Francisco Chronicle‚ÄòEpic, ambitious and strikingly executed, The Turner House is an impressive debut novel.‚Äô ‚ÄîTheRoot.com‚ÄòEven if all you know of Woodward Avenue comes courtesy of Bob Seger, even if 8 Mile is only a movie title to you, do yourself a favor and read The Turner House. Once you open its pages, you won‚Äôt be able to put it down‚Äô ‚ÄîPop Matters‚ÄòWith The Turner House, Flournoy has written an utterly unsentimental love story that, rather like the house on Yarrow Street, manages to make room for everyone.‚Äô ‚ÄîChristian Science Monitor‚Äò[The Turner House] is not only a saga of generations of this family, but is also about the ephemerality of the American Dream, and of how the hold we all have on our futures is more tenuous than we‚Äôd ever dare think.‚Äô ‚ÄîBrooklyn Magazine‚ÄòThe Turner House is a wonderfully crafted glimpse into the intimacy of family, and shows immense promise for Flournoy.‚Äô ‚ÄîBustle‚ÄòUtterly moving and tough as nails, The Turner House is a love story as immense as the family it describes, and as complicated as the city that made them. A clear-sighted ode to the bonds that make and break us, to resilience across generations, to shared joys and solitary struggles, Flournoy’s debut is as fresh and bold as they come. Commanding and unputdownable!‚Äô ‚ÄîAyana Mathis, author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie‚ÄòThe Turner House is a marvelous novel introducing a family of irresistible characters. Angela Flournoy is a magician–here is a story that is charming and funny while being whip-smart and profound. Laced through are the hard facts of history and the mysterious workings of the human heart. The magic begins with the extraordinary first chapter and lasts to the very last page. This is a thrilling debut from a writer to watch.‚Äô ‚ÄîTayari Jones, author of Silver Sparrow and Leaving Atlanta‚ÄòAngela Flournoy‚Äôs brilliant The Turner House is about no less than the joy and aggravation of being a human being in a large family, in a house, in a city, on this earth. This book is so beautifully written, so perfectly observed and heard‚Äîit‚Äôs about aging and parenthood and above all that misunderstood lifelong union, siblinghood‚Äîbut it‚Äôs also pure pleasure to read: funny, heartbreaking, with the sort of characters you‚Äôll miss like family when you finish. The Turner House is an absolutely wonderful novel.‚Äô ‚ÄîElizabeth McCracken, author of The Giant’s House and Thunderstruck‚ÄòFlournoy’s richly wrought prose and intimate, vivid dialogue make this novel feel like settling deeply into the family armchair.‚Äô ‚ÄîEntertainment Weekly‚ÄòOne of the many strengths of this book ‚Äî entertaining, well-written and keenly insightful without calling attention to itself ‚Äî is its clear-eyed, unsentimental vision.‚Äô ‚ÄîMilwaukee Journal Sentinel‚ÄòThe Turner House belongs on the shelf with the very finest books about one of America‚Äôs most dynamic, tortured, and resilient cities…There are cracklingly alive scenes inside pawn shops and factories, casinos and living rooms.‚Äô ‚ÄîMillions‚ÄòEncompassing a multitude of themes, including aging and parenthood, this is a compelling read that is funny and moving in equal measure.‚Äô ‚ÄîBooklist, starred review‚ÄòThe conversations between the Turner siblings ring true, and so do the family’s tension and affection. One hopes Flournoy has more stories to tell about them.‚Äô ‚ÄîShelf Awareness‚ÄòWhat makes The Turner House profound is its reality, its observation of a family so diverse and well-drawn that they seem real.‚Äô ‚ÄîBookPage‚ÄòFlournoy‚Äôs spare, headstrong style enables her to lay bare, without pretensions, a story about the black American diaspora in which slavery, segregation, and gentrification are all joined in a single narrative.‚Äô ‚ÄîThe Nation ‚ÄòA funny yet heart-wrenching book, both beautiful and revealing of all the ways close human beings relate to one another (and to places and things) over time.‚Äô ‚ÄîBuffalo News‚ÄòAn expansive and ambitious novel that descends through the generations of one family’s history to achieve real poignancy and power.‚Äô ‚ÄîT.C. Boyle, author of Drop City and The Women‚ÄòAngela Flournoy‚Äôs extraordinary debut novel, The Turner House, is as compelling, unforgettable, and beautifully told a story as I‚Äôve read in ages. The real and the supernatural, the hardships and hard won triumphs of the tightly knit, at times warring Turner clan will pull you close to this family‚Äôs generous, dignified heart. While each of the thirteen siblings (and their parents) could carry a book on his or her own, here they remain indelibly linked by the complicated bonds of history and belonging‚Äîand by the promises of their heartbreak city, Detroit.‚Äô ‚ÄîCristina Garc√≠a, author of Dreaming in Cuban andKing of Cuba‚ÄòThe Turner House is masterful: a novel full of history and lies and the myths that can bring a family together, or tear it apart. There are touches of grace a humor in this generous and humane portrait of a family, and a city, in transition. This is a beautiful, elegant, and living novel, one that you will savor until the last, moving paragraph.‚Äô ‚ÄîDaniel Alarc√≥n, author of At Night We Walk in Circles
