Alternate Side: A Novel

About this book

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Captures the angst and anxiety of modern life with . . . astute observations about interactions between the haves and have-nots and the realities of life among the long-married.USA Today A provocative novel that explores what it means to be a mother a wife and a woman at a moment of reckoning from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Millers Valley and Still Life with Bread Crumbs. Some days Nora Nolan thinks that she and her husband Charlie lead a charmed lifeexcept when theres a crisis at work a leak in the roof at home or a problem with their twins at college. And why not? New York City was once Noras dream destination and her clannish dead-end block has become a safe harbor a tranquil village amid the urban craziness. The owners watch one anothers children grow up. They use the same handyman. They trade gossip and gripes and they maneuver for the ultimate status symbol: a spot in the blocks small parking lot. Then one morning Nora returns from her run to discover that a terrible incident has shaken the neighborhood and the enviable dead-end block turns into a potent symbol of a divided city. The fault lines begin to open: on the block at Noras job and especially in her marriage. Praise for Alternate Side Anna Quindlens quietly precise evaluation of intertwined lives evinces a keen understanding of and appreciation for universal human frailties.Booklist (starred review) Exquisitely rendered . . . Quindlen is one of our most astute chroniclers of modern life. . . . Alternate Side has an almost documentary feel a verisimilitude thats awfully hard to achieve.The New York Times Book Review An exceptional depiction of complex charactersparticularly their weaknesses and uncertaintiesand the intricacies of close relationships . . . Quindlens provocative novel is a New York City drama of fractured marriages and uncomfortable class distinctions.Publishers Weekly