Mona Simpson – författare

Anywhere But Here is a moving, often comic portrait of wise child Ann August and her mother, Adele, a larger-than-life American dreamer. As they travel through the landscape of their often conflicting ambitions, Ann and Adele bring to life a novel that is a brilliant exploration of the perennial urge to keep moving, even at the risk of profound disorientation. Simpson''s first novel is ultimately a heart-rendering tale of a mother and daughter''s invaluable relationship.

"The two women in this book are American originals. Ann is a new Huck Finn, a tough, funny, resourceful love of a girl. Adele is like no one I''ve encountered, at once deplorable and admirable--and altogether believable."--Walker Percy

"Anywhere But Here is a wonder: big, complex, masterfully written, it''s an achievement that lands [Simpson] in the front ranks of our best novelists."--Newsweek

When an eavesdropping boy sets out to discover the obscure mysteries of his unravelling family, he uncovers instead what he least wants to know: the workings of his parents’ private lives. And even then he can''t stop snooping.Miles Adler-Rich spies and listens in on his separating parents with the help of his friend Hector. The boys’ amateur detective work starts innocently enough. But in rifling through his mother’s dresser and snooping in her online diary, it isn’t long before they stumble into the outer reaches of the grown-up’s privacy – uncovering powerful information that will affect the family’s health, wealth and sanity. Written with pathos and brilliant imagination, Casebook is an unflinching and very different coming-of-age story from one of America’s most gifted chroniclers of modern family life.

Mona Simpson''s first two novels, Anywhere But Here and The Lost Father, won her literary renown and a wide following. Now, in her third novel, the narrator Ann Atassi has been replaced by a third-person narrator recounting the adventures of young Jane di Natali, but the theme remains the same: the search for, and the attempt to understand, the absent father. This time the father is a millionaire biotechnology magnate named Tom Owens. Into Owens''s charmed life comes Jane, born out of wedlock, raised in communes, and now dispatched into his care by a mother who is no longer capable of providing it; Tom is far from ready for this responsibility. Fans of Simpson''s previous novels will not be disappointed by this excursion into the cracked world of family relations.

In this flawless novella, Mona Simpson turns her powers of observation toward characters who, unlike Ann and Adele August in her bestselling Anywhere but Here, choose to stay rather than go. As a high school student in Green Bay, Bea Maxwell raised money for good causes; later, she became a successful real estate agent and an accomplished knitter. The one thing missing from her life is a romantic relationship. She soon settles comfortably into the role of stylish spinster and do-gooder. Woven into Bea''s story are stories of other lifelong residents of Green Bay and the changes time brings to a town and its residents. This pure and simple work once again proves Mona Simpson one of the defining writers of her generation.

In her highly acclaimed first novel, Anywhere But Here, Simpson created one of the most astute yet vulnerable heroines in contemporary fiction. Now Mayan Atassi--once Mayan Stevenson--returns in an immensely powerful novel about love and lovelessness, fathers and fatherlessness, and the loyalties that shape us even when they threaten to destroy us. Now a woman of twenty-eight and finally on her own in medical school, Mayan becomes obsessed with the father she never knew, leading her to hire detectives to dredge up the past, thus eroding her savings, ruining her career, and flirting with madness in a search spanning two continents.

''Quietly devastating writing'' The Observer''Commitment is a majestic novel'' Yiyun Li, author of The Book of GooseA masterful and engrossing novel about a single mother''s collapse and the fate of her family after she enters a California state hospital in the 1970s.When Diane Aziz drives her oldest son, Walter, from LA to college, it will be her last parental act before falling into a deep depression. A single mother who believes that her children can attain all the things she hasn''t, she''s worked hard to secure their future. But when she enters hospital, her closest friend must keep the children safe and their mother''s dreams for them alive.At Berkeley College, Walter discovers a passion for architecture just as he realises his life as a student may end for lack of funds. Back home in LA, his sister Lina works in an ice-cream parlour while her wealthy classmates prepare for Ivy league schools, as she wages a high-stakes gamble to go there with them. And Donny, the little brother everybody loves, begins to drift towards a life on the beach, where he falls into an escalating relationship with drugs.A resonant story about family, duty, and the attendant struggles that come when a parent falls ill, it honours the spirit of imperfect mothers, and the under-chronicled significance of friends. With Commitment, Mona Simpson has written her most important and unforgettable novel.''Moving . . . [Simpson] is up there with Anne Tyler and Barbara Kingsolver when it comes to great chroniclers of American families''The Spectator''Simpson is a national treasure . . . I was immersed in their world and in Simpson''s masterful vision for them. Simpson is so attuned to the family heart and oh dear Walter, Lina, and Donnie, have you forever moved mine''Weike Wang, author of Joan Is Okay

Claire, a composer and a new mother, comes to Los Angeles so that her husband can follow his dream of writing television comedy. With Paul working all hours and Claire left with the baby, William, whom she adores but has no idea how to care for, they hire Lola, a fifty-two-year-old mother of five who works in America to pay for her own children’s education back in the Philippines. Lola stabilizes the rocky household, and other parents try to lure her away. What she sacrifices to stay with Claire and William remains her own secret.