Same as It Ever Was

The author of The Most Fun We Ever Had returns with a brilliantly observed family drama, in which a long marriage faces imminent derailment from events both past and present

At fifty-seven, Julia Ames has found herself with an improbably lovely life. Despite her inclination towards self-sabotage, she has a husband she loves, two happy children and a quiet, contented existence in the suburbs.

But, out of the blue, things begin to change.

Her always well-behaved son is acting strangely. Her beloved but belligerent teenage daughter is about to depart for college.

And, in the local grocery store, Julia encounters a woman she hasn't seen for twenty years – a woman whose friendship was once both her lifeline and, very nearly, her downfall.

All of a sudden, Julia's peaceful family setup and her long, affection-filled marriage face imminent derailment from events both past and present.

The author of The Most Fun We Ever Had returns with another brilliantly observed family drama, which examines the complete and complicated trajectory of one woman's life and asks what it takes to make – and to not break – a family.

About the Author

Claire Lombardo earned her MFA in fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her debut novel, The Most Fun We Ever Had, debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List, and has been translated or is forthcoming in over a dozen languages. It has been optioned for television by Reese Witherspoon. Same As It Ever Was is her second novel. Claire has worked as a social worker and currently teaches fiction writing. She was born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois, and now lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

Reviews

"It was such a pleasure to bury myself in this book, a literary novel of family life which moved and surprised me. Claire Lombardo creates such interesting characters and predicaments and manipulates the revelations and emotional bombshells so expertly that you read on ravenously" —Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures

"This is such a wonderful book: unsentimental yet full of feeling, with such sharply-written, loving and generous characterisation. It has everything I adore in a novel. I finished it in floods of tears, and had to sit for a minute or two to pull myself together. It absolutely floored me. What a joy to let a writer of such talent suffuse us with a life's worth of humour and pain, affection and mess!" —Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist

"Infidelity, dysfunction, secrets – this family novel delivers... A 500-page, multigenerational examination of the ties that bind... Lombardo refashions domestic drama into something rich and strange, with echoes of Lorrie Moore's sardonic humour and Jonathan Franzen's dissection of class... Like Franzen's Marion Hildebrandt, or Faye, the narrator of Rachel Cusk's Outline trilogy, Lombardo gives us a woman whose inner life is knotted and revelatory... Same as It Ever Was is a brave, nuanced book, lulling us with its rhythms but taking risks when we glance away" ―New York Times

"Same As It Ever Was is one of those big, grown-up existential novels about parenthood and marriage and teenagers and friendship and family life... But there is also something new to it, something that is both easy reading and profound at the same time, specifically on feelings of failure and abandonment, all of it cleverly brushed with wit and humour. A strong recommend" —Matt Haig, author of The Midnight Library

Dimensions: 15.4 x 4.4 x 23.2 cm