

Shamed by her past and her affair with Amy’s father she has submerged herself in the routine of her dead-end job and her unrequited love for her boss. recalls the elgegiac charm of Our Town." – The Christian Science Monitor "Stunning.Every once in a while, a novel comes along that plunges deep into your psyche, leaving you breathless.This year that novel is Amy and Isabelle." – San Francisco Chronicle "A novel of shining integrity and humor, about the bravery and hard choices of what is called ordinary life." –Alice Munro "Excellent.Strout's collective portrait.remains unflaggingly engaging.hat a pleasure to gain entry into the world of this book." – The New Yorker "Lovely, powerful.a kind if modern 'Rapunzel.'" – Newsweek " Amy and Isabelle is an impressive debut.with an expansiveness and inventiveness that is the mark of a true storyteller.Isabelle Goodrow has been living in self-imposed exile with her daughter Amy for 15 years. "One of those rare, invigorating books that take an apparently familiar world and peer into it with ruthless intimacy, revealing a strange and startling place." – The New York Times Book Review "Strout's insights into the complex psychology bewteen result in a poignant tale about two coming of age." – Time "Impressive.Strout writes with abundant warmth." – People "nsitively imagined. And just when it appears things can’t get any worse, Amy’s sexuality begins to unfold, causing a vast and icy rift between mother and daughter that will remain unbridgeable unless Isabelle examines her own secretive and shameful past.Ī Reader’s Guide is included in the paperback edition of this powerful first novel by the author who brought Olive Kitteridge to millions of readers. That they eat, sleep, and work side by side in the gossip-ridden mill town of Shirley Falls–a location fans of Strout will recognize from her critically acclaimed novel, The Burgess Boys–only increases the tension. In most ways, Isabelle and Amy are like any mother and her 16-year-old daughter, a fierce mix of love and loathing exchanged in their every glance.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Elizabeth Strout’s bestselling and award winning debut, Amy and Isabelle–adapted for television by Oprah Winfrey– evokes a teenager’s alienation from her distant mother–and a parent’s rage at the discovery of her daughter’s sexual secrets. “A novel of shining integrity and humor, about the bravery and hard choices of what is called ordinary life.”–Alice Munro

Before there was Olive Kitteridge, there was Amy and Isabelle…
