Home Repair by Liz Rosenberg

From the Publisher

Can lighting really strike twice? Just ask Eve, whose husband walks out on her in the middle of a garage sale.

Eve's beloved Ivan died thirteen years ago in an automobile accident. Her charming, boyish Chuck has taken a different exit out of her life: hopping into his car in the middle of a garage sale with no forewarning and departing their formerly happy upstate New York home for points unknown. Now Eve's a boat adrift, subsisting on a heartbreak diet of rue, disappointment, and woe-left alone to care for Ivan's brilliant teenaged son, Marcus, and Chuck's precocious, pragmatic nine-year-old daughter, Noni, while contending with Charlotte, Eve's acerbic mother, who's come north to "help" but hinders instead.

But life ultimately must go on, with its highs and lows, its traumas and holidays, and well-meaning, if eccentric, friends. A house and a heart in disrepair are painful burdens for a passionate woman who's still in her prime. And while learning to cope with the large and small tragedies that each passing day brings, Eve might end up discovering that she's gained much more than she's lost.

A poignant, lovely, funny, and ultimately uplifting story of love, family, and survival, Liz Rosenberg's Home Repair is an unforgettable introduction to a lyrical, wise, and wonderfully vibrant new literary voice.

Publishers Weekly

Rosenberg, a poet and children's book author, makes a clean break into adult fiction with the story of a middle-aged woman whose journey to independence begins at a garage sale. Forty-six-year-old Eve's garage sale takes an unexpected turn when her husband, Chuck, goes on an errand and never comes back, leaving Eve to raise teenage son Marcus and nine-year-old daughter Noni. Drawing support from her sometimes helpful mother, old friends at the university where she works and new friends-such as the man she meets in the park and a Korean graduate student and his non-English-speaking wife-Eve discovers the locals offer all she needs in her life. Rosenberg achieves remarkable emotional range-comic to tragic, dysfunction to triumph, irony to wisdom-for an engaging, often touching story of survival on a heartbreak diet. (May)

Bette-Lee Fox - Library Journal

Eve thought being a young widow was pain enough for one life. Now, second husband Chuck takes off during the family garage sale. Poet and children's author Rosenberg's adult debut is a tale of family and community that brilliantly illuminates its title as Eve's whole world, including her Binghamton, NY, home and university job, is in serious need of an overhaul. She tries to maintain her balance for the sake of her nearly 18-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter, as well as her mother, Mrs. Dunrea, who moves from her retirement home in Tennessee to help out. Eve's mother has never been the comforting type, and her brutal commentary doesn't ameliorate Chuck's departure or Eve's "heartbreak diet." But Korean student Mia, park worker Jonah, and colleague Lev work their way under Eve's brittle veneer. Will it be in time before the roof caves in? Rosenberg's prose sings in this winning novel with a fragile heroine capable of change and a cast of unique characters, none more so than the upstate environs both Eve and the author call home. Highly recommended for general readers.

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