Anna Quindlen, “Alternate Side: A Novel”

In Conversation with Holly Firfer, CNN Journalist

ANNA QUINDLEN, Alternate Side: A Novel
Book Club Pick!

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Miller’s Valley and Still Life with Bread Crumbscomes a provocative novel that explores what it means to be a mother, a wife, and a woman at a moment of reckoning. Some days Nora Nolan thinks that she and her husband lead a charmed life—and why not? New York City was once Nora’s dream destination, and her clannish dead-end block has become a safe harbor amid the urban craziness. The owners watch one another’s children grow up. They trade gossip and gripes, and they maneuver for the ultimate status symbol: a spot in the block’s small parking lot. Then one morning, Nora returns from her run to discover that a terrible incident has shaken the neighborhood, and the enviable dead-end block turns into a potent symbol of a divided city.

Anna Quindlen is a novelist and journalist whose work has appeared on fiction, nonfiction, and self-help bestseller lists. She is the author of nine novels: Object Lessons, One True Thing, Black and Blue, Blessings, Rise and Shine, Every Last One, Still Life with Bread Crumbs, Miller’s Valley, and Alternate Side. Her memoir Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, published in 2012, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. Her book A Short Guide to a Happy Life has sold more than a million copies. While a columnist at The New York Times she won the Pulitzer Prize and published two collections, Living Out Loud and Thinking Out Loud.