From the bestselling author of Latitudes of Melt and An Audience of
Chairs The Birthday Lunch is the story of one pivotal week in the
life of a family facing a tragic loss, rich with dramatic tension and
beautifully rendered.
Free-spirited Lily has always played the peacemaker between her fierce,
doting sister, Laverne, and her own loving, garrulous husband, Hal, as
they competed for her attention. The competition has only grown worse
since the three of them moved into a large house in the town of Sussex,
New Brunswick. On Lily's 58th birthday, a steamy day in late June,
Laverne feels she has bested Hal by winning her sister's company for a
gourmet lunch, but it becomes a bitter and short-lived victory when the
day's events take an unexpected and tragic turn.
In The Birthday Lunch, Joan Clark explores the different ways each
member of Lily's family confronts her shocking death: Hal's open sorrow,
her daughter Claudia's reappraisal of her own life, her son Matt's
determination to assign blame. And unforgettably, Laverne's eccentricity
and isolation, her intensifying conflict with Hal, illuminates the
brutal territory of accusation and regret. Compassionate and engrossing
with a powerful sense of place, The Birthday Lunch is an extraordinary
new novel from one of our most gifted storytellers.
