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Overview
From the critically acclaimed author of The Myth of You and Me, The History of Us is a heartrending story of love, loss, family, and the life you make in the path not taken. Sometimes home is the hardest place to go Eloise Hempel is on her way to teach her first class at Harvard when she receives the devastating news that her sister and her husband have been killed in a tragic accident. Eloise leaves her life in Cambridge and moves back into her family's century-old house in Cincinnati, pouring her own money into the house's upkeep and her heart into raising her sister's three children, Theodora, Josh, and Claire. Nearly twenty years later, the now-grown children seem ready to leave home, and Eloise plans to sell the house and finally start a life that's hers alone. But when Eloise's mother decides that they should all compete for the chance to keep the house and Claire reveals a life-changing secret, the makeshift family begins to fall apart and ultimately must decide what in life is worth fighting for.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781451672626
- ISBN-10: 1451672624
- Publisher: Touchstone Books
- Publish Date: January 2013
- Dimensions: 8.59 x 5.84 x 1.15 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
- Page Count: 384
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Leah Stewart’s fourth novel, following 2011’s Husband and Wife, opens as 28-year-old Eloise Hempel, newly hired as a history professor at Harvard, receives a phone call from her 11-year-old niece Theo in Cincinnati. Eloise’s sister, Rachel, and her husband have died in a crash while on vacation. Theo and her siblings, Josh, 9, and Claire, 2, had been staying with Francine, Eloise and Rachel’s mother, who somehow finds herself unable to make that difficult call herself.
Though she loves Boston, especially her plum job at Harvard, Eloise realizes she is the logical choice to raise her sister’s children in Cincinnati—with their familiar schools, their extracurricular activities, their friends.
The story then shifts to 2010, 17 years later. Eloise, Theo, Josh and Claire all live in Francine’s huge old house in Clifton, the Cincinnati neighborhood close to the university where Eloise now teaches. With the kids about to leave home, Eloise feels this is the perfect time to put the house on the market—maybe she could even move back to Boston at long last. But therein lies the snag, for the children, now grown, are all very attached to the house where they grew up as orphans. Unfortunately, none of them have the means to keep it.Theo feels the strongest—but still a student working on her dissertation, she has nothing to contribute to the bills. Josh dropped out of his band a year earlier, and has a mediocre job; Claire, a ballerina, is leaving soon for a position in New York City.
Stewart is a wonderful observer of family relationships, and she adroitly weaves the stories of Eloise and the children she’s raised—their work, their loves, their disappointments and dreams—while focusing on what ties families together, and what ultimately keeps those ties from breaking.
Leah Stewart’s fourth novel, following 2011’s Husband and Wife, opens as 28-year-old Eloise Hempel, newly hired as a history professor at Harvard, receives a phone call from her 11-year-old niece Theo in Cincinnati. Eloise’s sister, Rachel, and her husband have died in a crash while on vacation. Theo and her siblings, Josh, 9, and Claire, 2, had been staying with Francine, Eloise and Rachel’s mother, who somehow finds herself unable to make that difficult call herself. Though she loves Boston, especially her plum job at Harvard, Eloise realizes she is the logical choice to raise her sister’s children in Cincinnati—with their familiar schools, their extracurricular activities, their friends. The story then shifts to 2010, 17 years later. Eloise, Theo, Josh and Claire all live in Francine’s huge old house in Clifton, the Cincinnati neighborhood close to the university where Eloise now teaches. With the kids about to leave home, Eloise feels this is the perfect time to put the house on the market—maybe she could even move back to Boston at long last. But therein lies the snag, for the children, now grown, are all very attached to the house where they grew up as orphans. Unfortunately, none of them have the means to keep it.Theo feels the strongest—but still a student working on her dissertation, she has nothing to contribute to the bills. Josh dropped out of his band a year earlier, and has a mediocre job; Claire, a ballerina, is leaving soon for a position in New York City. Stewart is a wonderful observer of family relationships, and she adroitly weaves the stories of Eloise and the children she’s raised—their work, their loves, their disappointments and dreams—while focusing on what ties families together, and what ultimately keeps those ties from breaking.