Read about another entry on the list.We Are Not Ourselves, by Matthew Thomas
Eileen Tumulty is the only child of alcoholic parents, first-generation Irish immigrants who will never have more than what they have now: grueling blue-collar work and an apartment in Queens. When Eileen’s father pawns her mother’s ring to bet on the horses, her mother warns her, “Don’t ever love anyone…. All you’ll do is break your own heart.” But Eileen is determined not to make her parents’ mistakes. She falls in love with and marries Ed, a neuroscientist, and sets her sights on a home in upscale Westchester County. When Ed has other priorities, preferring pure research over well-paid corporate jobs, it’s just the first in a series of blows to Eileen’s ambition. Over the course of six decades she struggles heroically to lead the life she wants, rather than the life she was given.
--Marshal Zeringue
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