Flight

July 1, 2022

It's not a jolly Christmas for siblings Henry, Kate, and Martin, gathered at Henry's house after their mother's death. Bitterly held resentments swarm to the surface as they consider what to do with their mother's house, their sole inheritance, but a local mother's financial need refocuses their attention. Following the multi-best-booked Want; with a 100,000-copy first printing.

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August 8, 2022
Three siblings gather with their spouses and children for a fraught Christmas in Strong’s delicate latest (after Want). Martin, the eldest, is a disgraced college professor married to ruthless lawyer Tess. Henry is an artist married to artist turned social worker Alice. Kate, the youngest, is a stay-at-home mom married to the useless Josh, who has recently come to the end of a once considerable inheritance. Everyone gathers at Henry and Alice’s house in upstate New York; it’s their first Christmas together since their mother, Helen, died eight months earlier. Tensions rise: Kate wants to live in Helen’s house in Florida until her kids are off to college, but she needs her brothers to agree. Henry and Alice can’t have kids; the other two families are knee-deep in child-rearing, and, meanwhile, Alice is inappropriately attached to a child named Maddie, one of her clients. A disappearance midway through amplifies the plot, but the theme of grief takes center stage, as Helen’s memory permeates the gathering. Strong is adept as characterizing this loss in all its manifestations, and in rendering the challenges inherent in three families trying to celebrate together; upon arrival, Tess “wishes this visit were over.” Of course, the drama and fully formed characters make readers feel otherwise. Once again, Strong demonstrates her talents for perception and nuance. Agent: Sarah Bowlin, Aevitas Creative.

August 15, 2022
Three siblings bring their families together to celebrate the first Christmas after their mother's death. When Helen, their strong, opinionated, bighearted mother, dies suddenly, siblings Henry, Kate, and Martin and their spouses are left unmoored by her absence. Gathering at Henry and Alice's home in upstate New York, the family hopes to keep Helen's traditions alive while navigating holiday stress, interpersonal drama, and the unsettled nature of their inheritance: their childhood home in Florida. The house, however, is not the only tension within the group. Henry, an artist, spends long days constructing a flock of clay birds and fretting over climate change, while Alice, a social worker, ruminates on their childless life after years of fertility treatments. Struggling with their differing opinions about ambition and parenting, Martin and Tess live in New York City with their two kids. Kate and Josh, who have found themselves on the wrong end of bad financial investments, hope to move into Helen's house with their three children. Despite being set over just three days, Strong's book manages to distill the essences of not only the characters, but of their decades of shared history and the complicated, complex relationships among them. Above all else, the family loved Helen, and in the wake of her death, they must navigate the new dynamic and learn how to love one another again. Across town, Quinn and her daughter, Madeleine--Alice's clients--are relearning how to be a family, too, after Quinn temporarily lost custody of the girl. When Madeleine goes missing, the siblings spring into action to find her--and, in the process, begin to gain perspective about their own lives and relationships. With deft, discerning prose, Strong writes beautifully about mothers and the struggles, fears, and joys of motherhood. At one point, Kate confesses the depth of her grief to Tess: "But she's the only person in the world who ever saw me the way she saw me, who loved me like that, who remembered me as all the things I'd ever been and also thought of me as all the things she still thought I might become." As the novel comes to a close, Strong offers moments of connection among the family members that feel genuine and earned. A quiet domestic novel that soars.

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October 1, 2022
Siblings Martin, Henry, and Kate are facing their first Christmas since their mother's death. It will be the first Christmas that they and their respective spouses and children won't gather in their mother's Florida house, the first that won't bind them all together. At least not physically. In their mother's absence, old resentments, left unresolved, bubble to the surface, and the siblings clash over what to do with their mother's house, the only inheritance she left. It takes an unexpected crisis involving a local mother and her young daughter to force the family back together and goad them into discerning what matters most in their lives. Strong (Want, 2020) knows just how to write a quietly emotional novel. Her characters feel both familiar and unique, and she is skilled at creating subtly devastating moments mixed with hope and tenderness. Written during a time of intense isolation, Flight reminds us that there is power in community, family, and those special times in which we don't have to do anything but be human.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.