Jami Attenberg All Grown Up

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Jami Attenberg, author of All Grown Up, published just yesterday by Houghton Mifflin.

Jami’s debut collection of stories, Instant Love was published in 2006 followed by her novels The Kept Man and The Melting Season. Her best seller The Middlesteins appeared in 2012 and her latest work before All Grown up is Saint Mazie

She’s written for the NYT Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian among others.

All Grown Up tells us the continuing saga of Andrea, 40, single, childfree. Also a frequent (sometime itinerant) drug user and alcohol abuser.

Problem is, amongst others is she is not grown up, no engagement, no husband, baby, house. So it’s up to her and her poor therapist to try to figure out exactly what is going on.

The upshot is that the book resonates, as does Andrea’s situation. It evokes the same feeling in me now, as it would have done 40 years ago. What do I want to be when I grow up?

Part of us wants to kick Andrea in the ass and tell her to just get over it and move on and the other part wants to say, come on take it easy it will all work out just enjoy what you have and look forward to the future.

It’s a situation as I say that we have all found ourselves in.

The book, because it is so good, helps either relive, and you or less fortunately, us to remember get a lump in your stomach and realizes you are right there now.