In stores August 3, 2010
On Thanksgiving Day 2007, as the country teeters on the brink of a recession,
three generations of the Olson family gather. Eleanor and Gavin worry about
their daughter, a single academic, and her newly adopted Indian child, and
about their son, who has been caught in the imploding real-estate bubble.
While the Olsons navigate the tensions and secrets that mark their
relationships, seventeen-year-old Kijo Jackson and his best friend Spider set
out from the nearby housing projects on a mysterious job. A series of tragic
events bring these two worlds ever closer, exposing the dangerously thin line
between suburban privilege and urban poverty, and culminating in a crime that
will change everyone’s life.
In her gripping new book, Jennifer Vanderbes masterfully lays bare the fraught
lives of this complex cast of characters and the lengths to which they will go to
protect their families. Strangers at the Feast is at once a heartbreaking portrait
of a family struggling to find happiness and an exploration of the hidden costs of
the American dream.
Published to international acclaim, Jennifer Vanderbes’s first book, Easter
Island, was hailed as “one of those rare novels that appeals equally to heart,
mind, and soul,” by the San Francisco Chronicle. In her second novel, this
powerful writer reaches new heights of storytelling. This page-turner wrestles
with the most important issues of our time—race, class, and above all else,
family. Strangers at the Feast will leave readers haunted and deeply affected.
“An inventively plotted, highly readable novel
about white Americans’ overweening sense
of entitlement.” –Booklist
about white Americans’ overweening sense
of entitlement.” –Booklist
"This is a big and satisfying book.”
— Meg Wolitzer, author of TEN YEAR NAP
"Elegant and insightful and delightfully precise...Jennifer Vanderbes'
Strangers At The Feast is a bona-fide delicacy."
-John Wray, author of LOWBOY
— Meg Wolitzer, author of TEN YEAR NAP
"Elegant and insightful and delightfully precise...Jennifer Vanderbes'
Strangers At The Feast is a bona-fide delicacy."
-John Wray, author of LOWBOY
