From critically acclaimed New York Times best-selling author Jami Attenberg comes a novel of family secrets: think the drama of Big Little Lies set in the heat of a New Orleans summer
“If I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am,” says Alex Tuchman of her parents. Now that her father is on his deathbed, Alex—a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister--feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.) She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tightlipped mother, Barbra.
As Barbra fends off Alex’s unrelenting questions, she reflects on her tumultuous life with Victor. Meanwhile Gary, Alex’s brother, is incommunicado, trying to get his movie career off the ground in Los Angeles. And Gary’s wife, Twyla, is having a nervous breakdown, buying up all the lipstick in drug stores around New Orleans and bursting into crying fits. Dysfunction is at its peak. As each family member grapples with Victor’s history, they must figure out a way to move forward—with one another, for themselves, and for the sake of their children.
ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS is a timely, piercing exploration of what it means to be caught in the web of a toxic man who abused his power; it shows how those webs can tangle a family for generations and what it takes to—maybe, hopefully—break free. With her signature “sparkling prose” ( Marie Claire ) and incisive wit, Jami Attenberg deftly explores one of the most important subjects of our age. **
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of October 2019: By all accounts, the mysterious and mercurial patriarch of the Tuchman family is a “bad man.” To his wife, this quality could actually be a turn-on, despite being the occasional victim of his basest impulses. His children, on the other hand, have borne the brunt of his pernicious nature, marking them in ways that have followed them into adulthood. So when Victor finds himself on death’s door, there’s not much love lost; only one last opportunity to try and discover what made this toxic man tick, and, with any luck, escape the lingering effects of his dubious legacy. You may have gleaned that Jami Attenberg’s All This Could Be Yours is not the cheeriest of reads, but it accomplishes what the best novels do: It helps us to make sense of life’s messiness, and find hope in the most hopeless of places. Once again, Attenberg finds the function in dysfunction. --Erin Kodicek, Amazon Book Review
Review
A Most Anticipated title from: Buzzfeed * BookRiot * LitHub * The Millions * The Week * Good Housekeeping Kirkus*
A Best Fall Book Title from: *People * Entertainment Weekly * Buzzfeed * Vogue * Vulture * Bustle * New York Post * Nylon * Bust * USA Today * The Observer * PopSugar * Newsday * Woman’s Day * St. Louis Dispatch*
“ All This Could Be Yours is an engaging portrait of the unshakable connection of family.” — *Vogue*
“Complicated families are Attenberg’s speciality, and she more than delivers on that premise here.” — *Buzzfeed*
“Versatile, earthbound, and unforgiving, the novelist returns to the comic blend of messy family drama that made The Middlesteins such a smart best seller. This time, the madness swirls around the (sort of) grown children of the dying Victor, a tyrannical and very shady real-estate developer.” —Boris Kachka, *Vulture*
“Nobody writes family drama quite like Jami Attenberg, and her latest novel is a dark, deliciously captivating look into the way a toxic patriarch can poison everyone around him. There are no easy resolutions offered here, but that's as it should be.” — *Nylon*
“It wouldn’t be a Jami Attenberg novel without a difficult family at its center. The New Orleans-set All This Could Be Yours spins secrets and resentments in its portrait of a strong-willed lawyer who returns home to contend with the legacy of her abusive, dying father.” — * Entertainment Weekly*
“ All This Could Be Yours …is glorious. It’s dark, sexy, mordant and the characters are deeply flawed yet relatable in that ‘drag me’ way. It’s set in New Orleans and while Jami’s writing is sparkling and lucid, the muggy heat of the backdrop lends an air of sultry wooziness that evokes day drinking and other amazing decisions. This book captures the intolerable loneliness and occasional futility of loving your family. All This Could Be Yours makes you want to call your mom, get salty when she doesn’t pick up and then let her call go to voicemail when she rings you back." —Mary H.K. Choi, *Bustle*
“A deep dive into the darker side of family bonds, All This Could Be Yours is another compulsively readable novel by Jami Attenberg. In what feels like a rebuke to late capitalism, Attenberg refuses to find charm or redemption in the ugliness of greed. Her first book set in New Orleans, the novel casts a stark contrast between this family of outsiders and the native residents whose lives intersect with the Tuchmans. This is a parable for our times.” — *The Observer*
“Novelist Jami Attenberg writes fascinating, complicated characters, and All This Could Be Yours connects a villainous old man on his deathbed with others you’ll instantly care about. Despite the short time span, this story covers a lot of ground…a rich account of what folks have done, remembered, and regretted. Attenberg’s writing is funny and true, her observations bone-deep and nonjudgmental.” — *Bust*
“In this darkly hilarious family drama, an abusive patriarch is on his deathbed in New Orleans, and his daughter is determined to mine her distant mother for secrets.” — *NY Post*
“A richly drawn pleasure.” — *People Magazine*
“Dazzling . . . A delectable family saga.” — Publishers Weekly , starred review
“The novel takes place in one very long day but encompasses the entirety of lifetimes…Prickly and unsentimental, but never quite hopeless, Attenberg, poet laureate of difficult families, captures the relentlessly lonely beauty of being alive. Not a gentle novel but a deeply tender one.” — Kirkus , starred review
“Attenberg writes with a deeply human understanding of her characters, and the fact that, when it comes to family, things are rarely well enough to leave alone.” — Booklist, starred review
“Jami Attenberg always creates characters that feel so real you can almost touch them, and in All This Could Be Yours , she does it again. With their patriarch on his death bed, the family of Victor Tuchman gathers to say their goodbyes and figure out why he was the way he was. (And why they are the way they are.) Thoughtful and smart, All This Could Be Yours is a novel that begs to be discussed.” — Popsugar , “Best 2019 Fall Books for Women”
“An ambitious and utterly delectable novel about families and their secrets that opens up, pleasurably, like a set of nesting dolls." —Kelly Link, author of *Get In Trouble*
“Jami Attenberg's work is so deeply attuned to humans and our imperfect attempts to love each other. All This Could Be Yours is populated by Attenberg's pitch-perfect characters; flawed, recognizable people dealing with big topics--death, family, sex, love--and Attenberg handles it all with an expert touch and a keen sense of what, despite all the sadness and secrets, keeps people connected, striving for moments of beauty and tenderness in a dark world.” —Emma Cline, author of *The Girls*
“Set against the vivid backdrop of New Orleans, Jami Attenberg’s extraordinary new novel All This Could Be Yours is a deep dive into fractured family dynamics. In alternating voices, Attenberg expertly weaves together a chorus of love, betrayal and inheritance, each chapter a prism turned, revealing a new spectrum of secrets. Interspersed are gorgeous excavations into fleeting moments with strangers—the checkout clerks and ferry conductors passing through our lives—connecting this singular family into the larger web of life, where everyone is worthy of understanding and no one is without a soul.” —Hannah Tinti, author of *The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley*
“Attenberg crafts families with stunning nuance and depth. She pays tribute to unseen New Orleans with a gaze on the powerful and the downtrodden. Her characters are unforgettable, their predicaments are captivating and their journeys shed light on the inner workings of America.” —Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of *A Kind of Freedom*
“Jami Attenberg writes with an unflinching and generous spirit that brings to mind Grace Paley. All This Could Be Yours traces the lasting turmoil of a flawed marriage, and is another marvel of intelligence, humor, and soul.” —Zachary Lazar, author of Vengeance and *Sway*
"No one understands the contradictions of the human heart and how our grace and our failures reverberate through our families better than Jami Attenberg. And no one writes about our grace and failures with humor and compassion better than her either. Also—this book’s structure is brilliant." — Attica Locke, author of *Heaven, My Home*
“An engrossing story.” —AARP, “Favorite Fiction Books for Fall”
“Attenberg peels back the layers of each character until it feels like you have known this family your whole life.” — Alma, “Favorite Books for Fall”
Description:
From critically acclaimed New York Times best-selling author Jami Attenberg comes a novel of family secrets: think the drama of Big Little Lies set in the heat of a New Orleans summer
“If I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am,” says Alex Tuchman of her parents. Now that her father is on his deathbed, Alex—a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister--feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.) She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tightlipped mother, Barbra.
As Barbra fends off Alex’s unrelenting questions, she reflects on her tumultuous life with Victor. Meanwhile Gary, Alex’s brother, is incommunicado, trying to get his movie career off the ground in Los Angeles. And Gary’s wife, Twyla, is having a nervous breakdown, buying up all the lipstick in drug stores around New Orleans and bursting into crying fits. Dysfunction is at its peak. As each family member grapples with Victor’s history, they must figure out a way to move forward—with one another, for themselves, and for the sake of their children.
ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS is a timely, piercing exploration of what it means to be caught in the web of a toxic man who abused his power; it shows how those webs can tangle a family for generations and what it takes to—maybe, hopefully—break free. With her signature “sparkling prose” ( Marie Claire ) and incisive wit, Jami Attenberg deftly explores one of the most important subjects of our age. **
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of October 2019: By all accounts, the mysterious and mercurial patriarch of the Tuchman family is a “bad man.” To his wife, this quality could actually be a turn-on, despite being the occasional victim of his basest impulses. His children, on the other hand, have borne the brunt of his pernicious nature, marking them in ways that have followed them into adulthood. So when Victor finds himself on death’s door, there’s not much love lost; only one last opportunity to try and discover what made this toxic man tick, and, with any luck, escape the lingering effects of his dubious legacy. You may have gleaned that Jami Attenberg’s All This Could Be Yours is not the cheeriest of reads, but it accomplishes what the best novels do: It helps us to make sense of life’s messiness, and find hope in the most hopeless of places. Once again, Attenberg finds the function in dysfunction. --Erin Kodicek, Amazon Book Review
Review
A Most Anticipated title from: Buzzfeed * BookRiot * LitHub * The Millions * The Week * Good Housekeeping Kirkus*
A Best Fall Book Title from: *People * Entertainment Weekly * Buzzfeed * Vogue * Vulture * Bustle * New York Post * Nylon * Bust * USA Today * The Observer * PopSugar * Newsday * Woman’s Day * St. Louis Dispatch*
“ All This Could Be Yours is an engaging portrait of the unshakable connection of family.”
— *Vogue*
“Complicated families are Attenberg’s speciality, and she more than delivers on that premise here.”
— *Buzzfeed*
“Versatile, earthbound, and unforgiving, the novelist returns to the comic blend of messy family drama that made The Middlesteins such a smart best seller. This time, the madness swirls around the (sort of) grown children of the dying Victor, a tyrannical and very shady real-estate developer.” —Boris Kachka, *Vulture*
“Nobody writes family drama quite like Jami Attenberg, and her latest novel is a dark, deliciously captivating look into the way a toxic patriarch can poison everyone around him. There are no easy resolutions offered here, but that's as it should be.”
— *Nylon*
“It wouldn’t be a Jami Attenberg novel without a difficult family at its center. The New Orleans-set All This Could Be Yours spins secrets and resentments in its portrait of a strong-willed lawyer who returns home to contend with the legacy of her abusive, dying father.”
— * Entertainment Weekly*
“ All This Could Be Yours …is glorious. It’s dark, sexy, mordant and the characters are deeply flawed yet relatable in that ‘drag me’ way. It’s set in New Orleans and while Jami’s writing is sparkling and lucid, the muggy heat of the backdrop lends an air of sultry wooziness that evokes day drinking and other amazing decisions. This book captures the intolerable loneliness and occasional futility of loving your family. All This Could Be Yours makes you want to call your mom, get salty when she doesn’t pick up and then let her call go to voicemail when she rings you back." —Mary H.K. Choi, *Bustle*
“A deep dive into the darker side of family bonds, All This Could Be Yours is another compulsively readable novel by Jami Attenberg. In what feels like a rebuke to late capitalism, Attenberg refuses to find charm or redemption in the ugliness of greed. Her first book set in New Orleans, the novel casts a stark contrast between this family of outsiders and the native residents whose lives intersect with the Tuchmans. This is a parable for our times.”
— *The Observer*
“Novelist Jami Attenberg writes fascinating, complicated characters, and All This Could Be Yours connects a villainous old man on his deathbed with others you’ll instantly care about. Despite the short time span, this story covers a lot of ground…a rich account of what folks have done, remembered, and regretted. Attenberg’s writing is funny and true, her observations bone-deep and nonjudgmental.”
— *Bust*
“In this darkly hilarious family drama, an abusive patriarch is on his deathbed in New Orleans, and his daughter is determined to mine her distant mother for secrets.”
— *NY Post*
“A richly drawn pleasure.” — *People Magazine*
“Dazzling . . . A delectable family saga.”
— Publishers Weekly , starred review
“The novel takes place in one very long day but encompasses the entirety of lifetimes…Prickly and unsentimental, but never quite hopeless, Attenberg, poet laureate of difficult families, captures the relentlessly lonely beauty of being alive. Not a gentle novel but a deeply tender one.”
— Kirkus , starred review
“Attenberg writes with a deeply human understanding of her characters, and the fact that, when it comes to family, things are rarely well enough to leave alone.”
— Booklist, starred review
“Jami Attenberg always creates characters that feel so real you can almost touch them, and in All This Could Be Yours , she does it again. With their patriarch on his death bed, the family of Victor Tuchman gathers to say their goodbyes and figure out why he was the way he was. (And why they are the way they are.) Thoughtful and smart, All This Could Be Yours is a novel that begs to be discussed.”
— Popsugar , “Best 2019 Fall Books for Women”
“An ambitious and utterly delectable novel about families and their secrets that opens up, pleasurably, like a set of nesting dolls." —Kelly Link, author of *Get In Trouble*
“Jami Attenberg's work is so deeply attuned to humans and our imperfect attempts to love each other. All This Could Be Yours is populated by Attenberg's pitch-perfect characters; flawed, recognizable people dealing with big topics--death, family, sex, love--and Attenberg handles it all with an expert touch and a keen sense of what, despite all the sadness and secrets, keeps people connected, striving for moments of beauty and tenderness in a dark world.”
—Emma Cline, author of *The Girls*
“Set against the vivid backdrop of New Orleans, Jami Attenberg’s extraordinary new novel All This Could Be Yours is a deep dive into fractured family dynamics. In alternating voices, Attenberg expertly weaves together a chorus of love, betrayal and inheritance, each chapter a prism turned, revealing a new spectrum of secrets. Interspersed are gorgeous excavations into fleeting moments with strangers—the checkout clerks and ferry conductors passing through our lives—connecting this singular family into the larger web of life, where everyone is worthy of understanding and no one is without a soul.”
—Hannah Tinti, author of *The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley*
“Attenberg crafts families with stunning nuance and depth. She pays tribute to unseen New Orleans with a gaze on the powerful and the downtrodden. Her characters are unforgettable, their predicaments are captivating and their journeys shed light on the inner workings of America.”
—Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of *A Kind of Freedom*
“Jami Attenberg writes with an unflinching and generous spirit that brings to mind Grace Paley. All This Could Be Yours traces the lasting turmoil of a flawed marriage, and is another marvel of intelligence, humor, and soul.”
—Zachary Lazar, author of Vengeance and *Sway*
"No one understands the contradictions of the human heart and how our grace and our failures reverberate through our families better than Jami Attenberg. And no one writes about our grace and failures with humor and compassion better than her either. Also—this book’s structure is brilliant."
— Attica Locke, author of *Heaven, My Home*
“An engrossing story.” —AARP, “Favorite Fiction Books for Fall”
“Attenberg peels back the layers of each character until it feels like you have known this family your whole life.”
— Alma, “Favorite Books for Fall”