Set in France and America, News of Our Loved Ones is a haunting and intimate examination of love and loss, beauty and the cost of survival, witnessed through two generations of one French family, whose lives are all touched by the tragic events surrounding the D-Day bombings in Normandy.
What if your family’s fate could be traced back to one indelible summer?
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from the REVIEWS:
“With masterful artistry, DeWitt weaves together the individual narratives of relations both during WWII and for decades afterward, creating a multilayered narrative of survival and redemption…Each story can stand on its own, but together they offer a powerful kaleidoscopic view of the many ways war takes its toll and the small moments of beauty it nevertheless contains.” (Booklist)
“An effective and affecting tale of wartime loss and the way that weight of sorrow is held through generations…DeWitt writes in spare prose and has a knack for lovely turns of phrase…Moving.” (Publishers Weekly)
“Compelling…The experiences, perspectives, and secrets of a French family during the Nazi occupation and after World War II… The novel successfully portrays the indelible impact of the war on people who lived through it.” (Kirkus Reviews)
“DeWitt is ambitious with her latest novel, told from several perspectives through time, ranging across France to America and back again. The lives of her characters intertwine in a widening maze of infidelity, loss and secrecy, as the war links generations together as much as it tears those bonds apart…DeWitt’s strengths lie in keen emotional observation and the portrayal of her characters’ inner turmoil. She poetically illuminates her characters’ lives, weaving in and out like a knitting needle through wool.” (BookPage)
“In an age of novels where not much happens, DeWitt packs in enough narrative in a short space that would normally keep a multi-volume series running for years. News of Our Loved Ones ponders questions of love, loss, family and the long-reaching impact of war.” (Wilmington Star News)
“What makes this novel compelling is the compression of the story, the variety of points of view and the sheer elegance of DeWitt’s prose as she transforms her own family’s history—and world history along with it—into a powerful act of fiction…So deeply imagined are the characters and the settings that the reader…is completely overwhelmed by the beauty and the terror.” (Ms. Magazine)
“Lyrical and haunting.” (Lilith)
“A novel with the power to forge connections between people with different life experiences.” (Editor’s Choice, BookBrowse)
“DeWitt’s language is beautiful, the emotions very real, the places — as if they’ve been remembered in a painting or photograph.” (The Salisbury Post)
“A lyrical distillation of a French family’s loves and secrets over generations [that] touches three eras: the small-town piety and repressions before the war, the appalling deprivations and injustices of the war, and the excesses and voids afterwards…The story skips effortlessly through the decades…like poetry…This is a classic, like Irène Némirovsky’s Suite Française.” (Editor’s Choice, The Historical Novel Society)
“News of Our Loved Ones is a beautifully written work that untangles the fabric of family and follows each thread through time, to where meaning is forged from chaos.”
( Simon Van Booy, award-winning author of Father’s Day)
“Abigail DeWitt’s News of Our Loved Onesis a story of old Europe, of a tumultuous time that shifted borders, loyalties and family order. But it is also an enduring story of love, of secrets, of denial and of redemption. Each word she writes is imbued with beauty: what emerges is a delicate tableau of darkness and light; of village dusks and impulsive chances. Above all, it’s a story of a strong woman, a free woman, and her fractured memories. If Simone de Beauvoir were alive today, she would write like this.”
( Janine di Giovanni, author of The Morning They Came For Us: Dispatches From Syria)
“Told in multiple voices, and spanning generations, Abigail DeWitt’s News of Our Loved Onesis a novel of astounding beauty, empathy, and eloquence. ‘Most of the world will be too young to imagine that you ever really had a life,’ laments one character. But that is not the case: here is life. And here is a book that belongs on the shelf with Irène Némirovsky’s Suite Francaiseand Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, and all of our other great works of war and peace.” ( Mark Powell, author of Small Treasons)
“DeWitt’s beautiful and honest novel captures the full force of families spanning decades, wars, and oceans. Each character offers up shards of their existence until a radiant mosaic of deep longing, personal mythmaking, and remarkable endurance emerges. These characters brave the search for love, decency, and peace alongside the specter of loss. Yet the driving mystery here is not how sorrow hews us through time, but the resurgent heart’s ability to pass so much light from one generation to the next. This powerful book will imprint itself on readers.” (Devin Murphy, national bestselling author of The Boat Runner)