We All Love the Beautiful Girls

by Joanne Proulx

Overview

Perfect for fans of Rick Moody, Lauren Groff, and Celeste Ng, a propulsive literary breakout about three suburban families whose lives spiral dangerously out of control after tragedy strikes.


Who suffers when the privileged fall?

One frigid winter night, Mia and Michael Slate's comfortable world dissolves in an instant when they discover that their best friend has cheated them out of their life savings. At the same time, a few doors down, their teenaged son passes out in the snow at a party—a mistake whose consequences will shatter not just their family, but an entire community.

In this arresting, masterful page-turner shot through with fierce, clear-eyed compassion and a sublime insight into human fragility, award-winning novelist Proulx explores the savage underpinnings of betrayal, infidelity, and revenge—and a multilayered portrait of love, in all its glory, that no reader will soon forget.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538712436
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	06/11/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	525,799
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Joanne Proulx's fist novel Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet won Canada's Sunburst Award for Fantastic Fiction and was named a best debut by The Globe and Mail and Kirkus Reviews. A feature film adaptation will be released in 2018. A graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars, Joanne lives, writes and teaches in Ottawa, Canada.

Editorial Reviews

07/30/2018
Set in the quaint Canadian town of Old Aberdeen (a stand-in for Ottawa), Proulx’s provocative second novel (after Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet) follows the rupturing of the reasonably idyllic lives of one family by the events of one traumatic evening. Mia and Michael Slate receive a grim visit from the accountant at Michael’s property company and learn that his business partner has cheated him out of his share of the company’s profits, plunging them into sudden bankruptcy. Several streets over at a friend’s booze-filled house party, their teenage son, Finn, drunk and rejected by Jess, a family friend with whom he’s locked in a forbidden affair, falls into a hallucinatory sleep (“my body gone, my heartbeat floating”) in the snowy backyard. When he’s found, his hand is so severely frostbitten that it must be amputated. This development, along with the bankruptcy, sends Mia, Michael, and Finn spiraling apart from one another. As layers are peeled back to reveal the underpinnings of that night, the Slates learn hard truths about chance and intimacy, and how even minor acts of vengeance can metastasize into tragedies that cause irreparable damage. Gorgeously written, Proulx’s narrative offers a fascinating plot and both a searing exploration of the butterfly effect of trauma and the uncanny persistence of love in improbable circumstances. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

" We All Love the Beautiful Girls is a gripping tale of love gone awry. In a lively plot filled with twists and turns, Joanne Proulx's characters flail about and pay a high price for their impulsiveness and rage. This is a book to keep readers glued to the page, and enthralled by the author's skill and wisdom."— Lynne Sharon Schwartz, author of Two-Part Inventions

"When I finished this novel, I wanted to tell everyone I knew to read it. It is one of the best, most important books I've read in a very long time."— The Globe and Mail

"An emotional thrill-ride that manages to capture the tenderness and rage unique to adolescence and middle-age, the heartbreak of first love, and the fragility of even the most stable-seeming marriage."— Zoe Whittall, bestselling author of The Best Kind of People

"With We All Love the Beautiful Girls, Proulx ... moves firmly into John Cheever territory, exploring with a keen eye and incisive prose the suburbs of quiet desperation, peeling back facades to reveal the desperation and violence that lurk just below the surface. When that violence comes to a head, the results are as devastating as they are unexpected."— Toronto Star

"We All Love the Beautiful Girls has the ability to leave a reader breathless. The plot twists are daring. The characters and their dialogue capture the ways in which adversity can alter people. Lovers' wounds are plastered across every page and the veneer of civility becomes shockingly thin. And yet, in the end, love, decency, and forgiveness triumph. Think of the 1986 David Lynch film, Blue Velvet, in which brutality lurks just beneath the surface of everyday life, then erupts ferociously before disappearing back into the depths."— Quill & Quire

"Provocative...Gorgeously written, Proulx's narrative offers a fascinating plot and both a searing exploration of the butterfly effect of trauma and the uncanny persistence of love in improbable circumstances."— Publisher's Weekly

"Unflinching."— Harper's Bazaar, Best New Books

"Believe the hype about this family novel that's as complex as it is creative."— Hello Giggles

"Proulx's novel covers a lot of territory, with several twists and turns... The story excels in its depiction of women."— amNY

"The novel's visuals are vivid and well realized, the characters and their dramas cinematic."— New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher

2018-06-18
Proulx's (Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet, 2008) dark second novel begins during a frigid Canadian winter that sets the mood for all that follows as the members of a family facing crises on several fronts cope by isolating themselves from each other and behaving recklessly.On the first page, 17-year-old Finn announces to the reader that he is overpoweringly in love with his former babysitter Jess, with whom he's been sexually active for months. Unfortunately, 22-year-old Jess is seriously dating Eric, the older brother of Finn's friend Eli. Drunk, high, and distraught when Jess goes off with Eric at a party, Finn passes out in the snow and ends up losing his right hand. That same night, Finn's father, Michael, who runs a large real estate management company, and mother, Mia, a banker-turned-photographer, learn that Michael's partner and supposedly close friend Peter has not only funneled money out of the company, but has also cheated Michael out of his ownership. Instead of spending time with his son, Michael deals with his fury and grief about both his own and Finn's crises by obsessively practicing baseball with a street kid about Finn's age, developing a relationship that is creepy and potentially dangerous. Meanwhile, Mia resents that she always has to be the strong one in her marriage and goes on what she calls "unauthorized maternity leave"—really, leave from maternity and matrimony. Both parents are clueless about Finn's inner turmoil concerning the loss of his hand and about the complex geometry of love triangles involving Finn with Jess, Eric, Peter's teenage daughter, Frankie (who loves Finn), and Eli (who loves Frankie). Proulx's teens are sympathetically if sharply realistic, but the ugliness of the adult characters' behavior bludgeons the reader beyond endurance.No one in this world of selfishness, vengefulness, and obsession seems aware what kind of collateral damage their bad choices—whether misguided or malevolent—will have on others.

Kirkus Reviews

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