The Most Fun We Ever Had

Paperback / ISBN-13: 9781474611879

Price: £14.99

ON SALE: 25th June 2019

Genre: Society & Social Sciences / Sociology & Anthropology

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‘A literary love child of Jonathan Franzen and Anne Tyler … an outstanding debut, assured and highly enjoyable’ Observer
‘Should appeal to fans of Maria Semple, Emma Straub and Jennifer Egan … A moving, immersive, often very funny study of family and sisterhood’ Sunday Times


At a family wedding, the four Sorenson sisters polka-dot the green lawn in their summer pastels, with varying shades of hair and varying degrees of unease. Their long-infatuated parents watch on with a combination of love and concern.

Sixteen years later, the already messy lives of the sisters are thrown into turmoil by the unexpected reappearance of a teenage boy given up for adoption years earlier – and the rich and varied tapestry of the Sorensons’ past is revealed.

Weaving between past and present, The Most Fun We Ever Had portrays the delights and difficulties of family life and the endlessly complex mixture of affection and abhorrence we feel for those closest to us. A dazzlingly accomplished debut and an utterly immersive portrait of one family’s becoming, it marks the arrival of a major new literary voice.


‘A gripping and poignant ode to a messy, loving family in all its glory’ Madeline Miller, author of Circe and The Song of Achilles
‘Everything about this brilliant debut cuts deep: the humor, the wisdom, the pathos’ Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers

Reviews

Beware this book, that will enmesh you in the psychic DNA of this utterly convincingly imagined family. You will encounter characters whose stories you're compelled to follow, you will recognise the bitterest and sweetest tastes of life, you will laugh, and you will want to discuss it with other people. (Possibly not your own family). John Irving has a literary daughter, and her name is Claire Lombardo.
Laline Paull, author of THE BEES
I adored The Most Fun We Ever Had. It is such a shockingly tender and uncannily knowing novel about the reality of long term love and affection, and the sweetness and claustrophobia of relationships between sisters. Lombardo's writing is so elegant - she makes our most complex and fragmented feelings tangible, which is a very rare skill. This book will stay with me forever.
Daisy Buchanan, author of HOW TO BE A GROWN UP
Remarkably alive and wise, Claire Lombardo's story of the Sorensons is a stunning vision - not just of family or love, but the funny, tender mystery of human connection itself, with all its intensity, charm, and wonder.
Affinity Konar, author of MISCHLING
Lombardo's impressive debut is a gripping and poignant ode to a messy, loving family in all its glory. She juggles a huge cast of characters with seeming effortlessness, bringing each to life with humour, vividness and acute psychological insight.
Madeline Miller, author of CIRCE
Claire Lombardo has created a wonderful, subtle and sophisticated portrait of a family. The nuances, the secrets, the triumphs and tragedies light up this narrative with the many ways we love and the unremitting clarity with which we are known by our siblings. Epic and intimate, funny and delicate, this is a best friend of a book: curl up with it and lose yourself in the easy intimacy of the magnetic, loveable and flawed family of Sorensons.
Raffaella Barker, author of SPRINGTIME
I cancelled appointments to keep reading this totally gripping portrait of a marriage and the four daughters that it has produced. It is excellent on sisterhood, motherhood, marriage - in fact on all human relationships. Highly, highly recommended.
Clover Stroud, author of THE WILD OTHER
In The Most Fun We Ever Had Claire Lombardo has given us a truly unforgettable American family. The book bristles on every page with intelligence and fierce wit. What a debut!
Richard Russo, Author of EVERYBODY'S FOOL
This amazing, sexy, moving, transfixing novel sweeps you up into the epic range of human emotion, from tenderness to exasperation, bafflement to pride, anger to unconditional love that is intrinsic to family life. And how those oh-so-familiar hairpin bends of parenthood and of marriage are so beautifully juxtaposed with the infinite complexities and blind corners of being a daughter, a sister, a friend, a lover! I couldn't quite think of what to do with myself when I came to the last page except read it all over again.
Juliet Nicolson, author of A HOUSE FULL OF DAUGHTERS
A novel to make a note to pack for summer travels ahead
Laura Bailey, VOGUE
If ever there were to be a literary love child of Jonathan Franzen and Anne Tyler, then Claire Lombardo's outstanding debut, which ranges from ebullience to despair by way of caustic but intense familial bonds, would be a worthy offspring...This is a novel epic in scope-emotionally, psychologically and narratively. Combining a broad thematic canvas with impressive emotional nuance, it's an assured and highly enjoyable debut.
Hannah Beckerman, GUARDIAN
A rich, engrossing family saga, spiked with sisterly malice...[rendered] with such skill and finely tuned interest that it feels like a quiet subversion of the traditional family saga.
The New York Times Book Review
Ambitious and brilliantly written
Jane Smiley, The Washington Post
A wonderfully immersive read that packs more heart and heft than most first novels...A deliciously absorbing novel with-brace yourself-a tender and satisfyingly positive take on family.
NPR
The big family saga of the summer
EW
You'll be glad this loopy family isn't yours, but reading about them is a treat.
People magazine
A sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt...A fun and brimming tale...Divine
Kirkus
An expansive U.S. family saga, expertly rendered
Daily Mail
Lombardo has a wry, often spiky humour and tightly written style that should appeal to fans of Maria Semple, Emma Straub and Jennifer Egan ... A moving, immersive, often very funny study of family and sisterhood.
Sunday Times
A spry, sly and funny read
Sunday Express
A funny, complex, tragic and immersive family sage which spans forty years. This is the perfect, engrossing holiday read
Red
An exploration of the complex tapestry that is family life, full of delights and difficulties
Cosmopolitan
I love this book, and the Sorensons, so much
Bryony Gordon