Strangers and Cousins: A Novel

By Leah Hager Cohen

ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR

One of Christian Science Monitor's BEST FICTION OF 2019

"Funny and tender but also provocative and wise. . . One of the most hopeful and insightful novels I've read in years." - Ron Charles, The Washington Post

"Serious yet joyous comedy, reminiscent of the Pultizer-winning Less" - Out Magazine

A novel about what happens when an already sprawling family hosts an even larger and more chaotic wedding: an entertaining story about family, culture, memory, and community.

In the seemingly idyllic town of Rundle Junction, Bennie and Walter are preparing to host the wedding of their eldest daughter Clem. A marriage ceremony at their beloved, rambling home should be the happiest of occasions, but Walter and Bennie have a secret. A new community has moved to Rundle Junction, threatening the social order and forcing Bennie and Walter to confront uncomfortable truths about the lengths they would go to to maintain harmony.

Meanwhile, Aunt Glad, the oldest member of the family, arrives for the wedding plagued by long-buried memories of a scarring event that occurred when she was a girl in Rundle Junction. As she uncovers details about her role in this event, the family begins to realize that Clem's wedding may not be exactly what it seemed. Clever, passionate, artistic Clem has her own agenda. What she doesn't know is that by the end, everyone will have roles to play in this richly imagined ceremony of familial connection-a brood of quirky relatives, effervescent college friends, ghosts emerging from the past, a determined little mouse, and even the very group of new neighbors whose presence has shaken Rundle Junction to its core.

With Strangers and Cousins, Leah Hager Cohen delivers a story of pageantry and performance, hopefulness and growth, and introduces a winsome, unforgettable cast of characters whose lives are forever changed by events that unfold and reverberate across generations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: May 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9780698409644

Reviews for Strangers and Cousins

[froxgirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Novels centered around weddings can be a distinct pleasure. This one is tender, multi-faceted, and brimming with enjoyably conflicted narrators and rambunctious children. The setting is Rundle Junction, a small upstate NY town, infamous for a horrible tragedy in the early 1900s and now facing an influx of Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews). The bride, Clem, is the eldest of four children and is marrying her college girlfriend, Diggs, an African American woman whose voice and point of view, very unfortunately, is lacking. I believe this to be the book's only flaw. In the countdown of days leading up to the main theatrical event, parents Walter and Bennie (secretly pregnant again in her late 40s) have their hands overfull with unexpected guests, a dying great-aunt in an upstairs bedroom, alienated family, and uncertain weather. The author's tactic of providing glimpses of the distant future of many protagonists is very reassuring and welcome. It's a warm bath of a story.Quotes: "What more acute loneliness than to be a stranger in the midst of a group of people who are knitted together in a most intimate way?""Pim [age 5] loves the news. The gravity of the voices, the sense that elsewhere in the world people are in charge, grown-up men and women tending to things, managing things, discussing things in a language he can't fully follow, a grey wash of gobbledygook. Every once in a while, a phrase emerges, glistening clear and pink, for him to seize.""Fiebush, by then eighty-eight, liver-spotted as an overripe banana...""She looks smaller than ever under the wispy pink mohair, aglow like spun sugar in the sun. She looks not simply reduced but somehow concentrated, as if all that has evanesced was superfluous, while all that remains is essence."

[dorritt_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

My book club and I were pretty much in unison on this one: so much ado about ... what? The author seems to be working her way through a checklist of "contemporary fiction to-dos" ... eccentric family, prodigal son, dark family secret = check! Gender fluid characters, interracial romance, environmental activism, free range parenting = check! "Ripped from the headlines" subplot (a religious group poised to transform an established old town - will the community welcome them or close ranks?) = check! Whimsical ancestral home, precocious kid, and a bit with an animal = check! ... without bothering to connect these disparate narrative elements into any kind of cohesive whole. The result is a story that has a lot going on but not much happening ... which can be okay if the author creates characters that you're vested in, but that doesn't happen here either because Cohen seems to believe that endowing characters with imaginative idiosyncrasies - a husband who loves baking, a wife who grooves on being fertile, a daughter who's into avant garde theater, a little kid who fancies himself a military scout - is enough to make them fully realized and endearing, but of course it's not. And maybe it's just me, but authors who employ third person limited narration shouldn't endow their characters with anachronistic perspectives and vocab just so the author can show off their wit and wokeness. Totally undermines any authenticity the author is attempting to establish.I hung in there until the end because I kept thinking that something must be coming - some revelation or narrative twist that would tie all these meandering subplots together - but that never happens and now I kind of regret the time I spent on this, time I could have spent on something with more authenticity, depth, and genuine empathy.

[snash_44 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A sprawling novel of family and friends gathered for a wedding, full of unique descriptions, philosophical musings, cultural dilemmas, and poignant relationships.