The Risk of Us

✍ Scribed by Rachel Howard

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Year: 2019
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 155 KB
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN: 1328588823

✦ Synopsis

A poignant, dazzling debut novel about a woman who longs to be a mother and the captivating yet troubled child she and her husband take in.

What is the cost of motherhood? When The Risk of Us opens, we meet a forty-something woman who deeply wants to become a mother. The path that opens up to her and her husband takes them through the foster care system, with the goal of adoption. And when seven-year-old Maresa—with inch-deep dimples and a voice that can beam to the moon--comes into their lives, their hearts fill with love. But her rages and troubles threaten to crack open their marriage. Over the course of a year, as Maresa approaches the age at which children become nearly impossible to place, the couple must decide if they can be the parents this child needs, and finalize the adoption—or, almost unthinkably, give her up.

For fans of Jenny Offill and Rachel Cusk, The Risk of Us deftly explores the inevitable tests children bring to a marriage, the uncertainties of family life, and the ways true empathy obliterates our defenses.

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Review

“A novel about balancing one's desire for motherhood with the fear and anguish of it, The Risk of Us is a book that will surely speak to those who have complicated feelings about becoming a mother at all.” *—Bustle *

"Though rooted in memoir, this is compelling fiction, trenchant, heartbreaking, ultimately hopeful."*—Booklist *

“An emotionally complex and amazingly suspenseful novel about love and fear."*—Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation *

"Rachel Howard has given us a portrait of family-building and attachment that is at once beautiful and painful, serious and funny, page-turning and insightful. I was deeply moved by this novel, a powerful reminder of the risks we take on whenever we love anyone."
_— Belle Boggs, author of* * The Art of Waiting**_

"I’ve never read anything so beautiful about the intricacies of adoption—the process itself, and the seldom-talked-about aftermath. The prose is elegant and compressed; I often had to stop reading to catch my breath. Anyone who has ever loved a child, in any capacity, should read this book."
— Jamie Quatro, author of * I Want to Show You More and Fire Sermon***

"The Risk of Us is a spare, poetic, and fearless narrative that explores the question of what makes—and keeps—a family together. Be prepared for an absorbing, unflinching chronicle of the formidable difficulties and vast rewards of love."
_— Krys Lee, author of* * How I Became a North Korean **and Drifting House_

"Rachel Howard’s The Risk of Us (so accurately titled) is a novel of deep pain yet also laughs—lots of them. Nothing is easy in this book, and that’s as it should be. With risk comes a kind of awesome grace. A wonderfully written and candid examination of what it means to be a family."
— Peter Orner, author of * Last Car over the Sagamore Bridge and Love and Shame and Love***

"Howard works with an elegant complexity, rendering family life with its necessary cocktail of pain and humor and pathos. She's the kind of writer I admire most: an unflinching, savage, and ultimately tender eye trying to make sense of all our confusions."
— Joshua Mohr, author of * Termite Parade***

"This book reads like a thriller. A beautiful story about connection and love despite and beyond trauma.”
**— Julia Scheeres, author of Jesus Land **

"A study in the frustrations of the foster-care system and the shaky foundations beneath new families. "*—Kirkus *

About the Author

RACHEL HOWARD earned her MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College and is the author of a memoir, The Lost Night. She is the recipient of a MacDowell Colony fellowship, and her fiction, essays, and dance criticism have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle , the New York Times , the Los Angeles Review of Books , and elsewhere.

✦ Subjects

Electronic books