The House Uptown: A Novel

Written by Melissa Ginsburg

Narrated by Emily Shaffer

Melissa Ginsburg's The House Uptown is an emotional coming-of-age novel about a young girl who goes to live with her eccentric grandmother in New Orleans after the death of her mother.

Ava, fourteen years old and totally on her own, has still not fully processed her mother’s death when she finds herself on a train heading to New Orleans, to stay with Lane, the grandmother she barely remembers.

Lane is a well-known artist in the New Orleans art scene. She spends most of her days in a pot-smoke haze, sipping iced coffee, and painting, which has been her singular focus for years. Her grip on reality is shaky at best, but her work provides a comfort.

Ava’s arrival unsettles Lane. The girl bears an uncanny resemblance to her daughter, whom she was estranged from before her death. Now her presence is dredging up painful and disturbing memories, which forces Lane to retreat even further into her own mind. As Ava and Lane attempt to find their way and form a bond, the oppressive heat and history of New Orleans bears down on them, forcing a reckoning neither of them are ready for.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books

"Ginsburg's brilliance is on full display in The House Uptown. By giving us these layered, complicated characters, all suffering from previous traumas, Ginsburg reveals how the past keeps reaching toward us, and what we'll do to stay out of its reach. It's a book that breaks you down, even though you can't put it down." - Kevin Wilson, NYT bestselling author of Nothing to See Here

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Release date: Mar 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781250791818

Melissa Ginsburg

Melissa Ginsburg was born and raised in Houston, Texas, and attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the author of the poetry collection Dear Weather Ghost, and the poetry chapbook “Arbor.” She teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

Reviews for The House Uptown

[Tracy Wisneski · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great character development that got me very invested in the story, but the end came out of nowhere and felt unfinished.

[Angela Kelly · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Starts out strong but somewhere in the middle it loses focus. When a teenager named Ava loses her mother she's sent to summer at her grandmother's home in New Orleans. Ava didn't expect the eccentric woman that she meets named Lane and in no way anticipated the artistic success that has made her well known in New Orleans. Throw in Oliver, Lane's assistant, Louise, Ava's mother and Lane's estranged daughter and Artie, a City Councilma with dark past and you have a full house.

[Melissa · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was a good read. I was waiting for something more. Didn't seem like there was a lot of mystery.