Betsy Lerner – författare

A fifty-year-old Bridge game provides an unexpected way to cross the generational divide between a daughter and her mother. Betsy Lerner takes us on a powerfully personal literary journey, where we learn a little about Bridge and a lot about life.

After a lifetime defining herself in contrast to her mother’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” generation, Lerner finds herself back in her childhood home, not five miles from the mother she spent decades avoiding. When Roz needs help after surgery, it falls to Betsy to take care of her. She expected a week of tense civility; what she got instead were the Bridge Ladies. Impressed by their loyalty, she saw something her generation lacked. Facebook was great, but it wouldn’t deliver a pot roast.

Tentatively at first, Betsy becomes a regular at her mother’s Monday Bridge club. Through her friendships with the ladies, she is finally able to face years of misunderstandings and family tragedy, the Bridge table becoming the common ground she and Roz never had.

By turns darkly funny and deeply moving, The Bridge Ladies is the unforgettable story of a hard-won—but never-too-late—bond between mother and daughter.

In FOOD AND LOATHING a bright, chubby girl believes that thinness is next to godliness and so attends one of the first meetings of Overeaters Anonymous in 1975. Her twenties are marked by yo-yo dieting, depressive episodes and a sadistic shrink. Then, just as her dream of being a writer is within reach, entering Columbia''s prestigious MFA program, she spirals into a suicidal depression and lands for a six-month stay at New York State Psychiatric Institute. There a young resident helps her take her first steps towards selfhood, unravelling the self-loathing of an eating disorder coupled with a paralysing mood disorder. He also helps her confront a tragic family secret whose silence had enveloped an otherwise average Jewish middle-class family. FOOD AND LOATHING is a book about how people use food to narcotise, to love and to escape. It''s about therapy - the good, the bad, and the down right destructive - and about every woman who spends too much of her life thinking about her weight and how she can forgive herself for living - and even learn to love.

No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister.

It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight until her stunning confidence becomes erratic and unpredictable, a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, believes in facts, proof and the empirical world. None of that explains what''s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the mental illness that will shatter Amy''s carefully constructed life.

As Amy comes of age and seeks to find her place – first in academia, then New York publishing, and through a series of troubled relationships – every step brings collisions with Ollie, who slips in and out of the Shred family without warning. Yet for all that threatens their sibling bond, Amy and Ollie cannot escape or deny the inextricable sister knot that binds them.

Spanning two decades, Shred Sisters is an intimate and bittersweet story exploring the fierce complexities of sisterhood, mental health, loss and love. Perfect for fans of emotional family dramas and quirky contemporary literature such as I’m Sorry You Feel That Way by Rebecca Wait, Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason and Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors.

''I love this book. It moves like a souped-up pickup truck'' - Patti Smith, author of Just Kids

''A richly layered family novel that manages to be raucously funny, insightful, and tender... I will be thinking about the Shred Sisters for a long time'' - Cynthia D''Aprix Sweeney, author of Good Company

''A brilliantly written, emotionally gripping saga that delves into the complexity of sisterhood, mental health, and resilience... One of the best books I''ve read in years'' - Chloé Cooper Jones, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist

''Shred Sisters is the kind of novel readers won''t want to end... Its bright, clean, gallivanting story rewards an open mind and heart with crisp prose, fresh plot turns and dimensional, dishy portraits we can instantly recognize'' - Washington Post

''This heartfelt novel reveals the power of the sibling bond to shape our lives'' - People

''Modest moments become revelatory in the wry and incisive Shred Sisters'' - NPR

''A bildungsroman overcast with the thick and inconstant cloud of mental illness... Decidedly un-trendy, crescendo-less and restrained, this tragicomic family saga is a Bach prelude to the Rachmaninoff of a writer like Jonathan Franzen'' - New York Times

** Longlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize 2024 **** A New York Times Notable Book of the Year **** A Good Housekeeping USA Book Club Pick **** A Best New Book from Bustle and People **** Nominated for Readers'' Favourite Debut Novel in the 2024 Goodreads Choice Awards **

This novel contains depictions of mental illness and references to addiction.