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"...excellent...intelligent and engaging, Sweet Ruin examines the fallout from grief and the intricacies of family, while weighing the comforts of the prosaic against the tantalizing allure of the new."
--People, |
Sweet Ruin
(2006, Atria Books)
Elayna Leopold, 35, lives with her young family in suburban New Jersey, working from home so that she can raise her daughter, Hazel, while her husband, Paul, puts in long hours as a corporate lawyer. Elayna is typical of women who spend their twenties chasing dreams in the city only to spend their thirties chasing children in the suburbs. And yet, no one knows better than she that life can change in an instant. Two years ago her infant son died, sending her into a depression from which she is just emerging, and Elayna finds herself suddenly—thrillingly—craving life's passions again. When she meets Kevin, a young artist with whom she spends more and more time during Paul's absences, Elayna discovers a version of herself she thought was gone forever. As she uncovers yearnings that could destroy everything she cherishes, a threat to Hazel emerges, making Elayna's choices and decisions that much more loaded and terrifying.
A dangerous novel of attachments and adultery, of marital crisis, sexual tension, and one woman's struggle to reconcile her needs and desires with her loves and obligations, Sweet Ruin raises heartrending questions about the challenges of everyday life.
Read Chapter One of Sweet Ruin
Praise and Reviews:
Read the full review from People Magazine.
"Hanauer has a poet's eye for detail and a spot-on sense of the specifics of mothering in the suburbs....a compulsively readable story of [Elayna's] awakening"
--Elle (Read Full Review)
"Hazel is one of the best-written children in recent fiction...Hanauer skillfully handles the gray areas of emotional incest in all its weird permutations."
--USA Today
"Moral issues great and small laced with hot sex scenes...make Sweet Ruin a fine poolside choice for thinking moms."
--New York Newsday
"...a slow burn that bursts into a page-turner."
--Boston Magazine
