Want A novel

From the outside, it looks like Elizabeth has everything she could ever need. A loving husband, two beautiful daughters, and a stable job. But what isn't seen is that she is working two jobs, she and her husband are filing for bankruptcy, and her mother keeps hinting that Elizabeth is unfit to look after her children and they might be taken away. Elizabeth tells herself that reaching out to her old friend Sasha over Instagram is an innocent move, but the timing brings Sasha back in her life at a moment of mutual crisis. Strong (Hold Still, 2016) has an uncanny way of pulling the reader into the heart of her narrative and creating an intimate portrayal of relationships that are fractured but necessary. Her skill at depicting the inner workings of a frustrated housewife will appeal to lovers of Mrs Dalloway (2002) and Ducks, Newburyport (2019). Want is a surprisingly moving novel that will have you dabbing away at your eyes and swallowing that lump in your throat.

Strong's impressive follow-up to Hold Still explores the energy it takes for women to sustain themselves in a world that leaves them feeling "less than, knocked down, not quite in control." Now living in New York City, Elizabeth and her unnamed husband are "eighties babies, born of plenty, cloistered by whiteness... brought up to think that if we checked off certain boxes we'd be fine." Elizabeth has a PhD, but tenure-track professorship remains out of reach, and her husband, the first in his family to attend college, once worked for Lehman Brothers and now struggles to get a carpentry business off the ground. Due to their unstable employment and scant insurance coverage for her C-section and root canals, they are deep in debt ("my body almost single-handedly bankrupted us"). As the couple advance through the bankruptcy process, buoyed by their love for their young children and at times each other, Elizabeth becomes caught up in repeating an old pattern with her friend, Sasha, who is anxious about her pregnancy after a previous miscarriage. Strong unpacks the fraught history of Elizabeth and Sasha's friendship dating back to their teenage years, delivering great insight on how the exhausted women have found themselves wanting--male attention, babies, choices, recognition, respect--as they compromise their dreams in order to survive. This is well worth a look. (July)

A deeply overwhelmed mother navigates the banality, joy, and turmoil of her life. Strong's second novel follows Elizabeth, a 34-year-old academic and mother of two, who finds herself living a life she never imagined. Elizabeth, who grew up in a well-off family, now teaches low-income students at a New York City charter school (a job she needs and likes but cannot seem to love) because she cannot find a full-time job in academia. On top of declaring bankruptcy with her husband, Elizabeth finds her day filled to the brim: She runs miles at dawn, raises her children, works multiple jobs, tends to her marriage, placates her cruel parents, tries to make rent, navigates her privilege, and rekindles a friendship with Sasha, her ex--best friend and the most formative relationship of her life. As they start to communicate again, Elizabeth thinks back on their decades-old relationship and where it went wrong. Strong taps into the intensity of female friendships and how overwhelming, all-consuming, and painful they can be: "I'd forget then, on the best days, that we were separate. Our words and wants and limbs would overlap." Strong writes womanhood with brutal honesty; exhaustion, love, desire, anxiety, and the devastation of unfulfilled expectations permeate every page. At one point, Elizabeth thinks about all the things she wants to confide to Sasha: "I want to tell her that I'm scared I'm too wore out, worn down, that this constant anxious ache that I have now isn't about my job or kids or all the ways life isn't what it should be, that maybe it's just me, it's most of who I am." This moment captures the despair and agony of realizing not only how the world has failed you, but how you've failed yourself. Strong's writing consistently distills bitter truths in understated yet penetrating ways. A wise, unflinching, and compelling novel about womanhood. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.