The Other's Gold: A Novel
Aug 2019 · Penguin
5.0star
1 reviewreport
Ebook
352
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About this ebook
“The perfect book to read with your friends.” —Bustle
“The debut novel of the season, The Other's Gold reads like an origin story for the women of Big Little Lies.” —Elle
An insightful and sparkling novel that opens on a college campus and follows the friendship of four women across life-defining turning points
Assigned to the same suite during their freshman year at Quincy-Hawthorn College, Lainey, Ji Sun, Alice, and Margaret quickly become inseparable. The leafy green campus they move through together, the idyllic window seat they share in their suite, and the passion and ferocity that school and independence awakens in them ignites an all-encompassing love with one another. But they soon find their bonds--forged in joy, and fused by fear--must weather threats that originate from beyond the dark forests of their childhoods, and come at them from institutions, from one another, and ultimately, from within themselves.
The Other's Gold follows the four friends as each makes a terrible mistake, moving from their wild college days to their more feral days as new parents. With one part devoted to each mistake--the Accident, the Accusation, the Kiss, and the Bite--this complex yet compulsively readable debut interrogates the way that growing up forces our friendships to evolve as the women discover what they and their loved ones are capable of, and capable of forgiving. A joyful, big-hearted book that perfectly evokes the bittersweet experience of falling in love with friendship, the experiences of Lainey, Ji Sun, Alice, and Margaret are at once achingly familiar and yet shine with a brilliance and depth all their own.
“The debut novel of the season, The Other's Gold reads like an origin story for the women of Big Little Lies.” —Elle
An insightful and sparkling novel that opens on a college campus and follows the friendship of four women across life-defining turning points
Assigned to the same suite during their freshman year at Quincy-Hawthorn College, Lainey, Ji Sun, Alice, and Margaret quickly become inseparable. The leafy green campus they move through together, the idyllic window seat they share in their suite, and the passion and ferocity that school and independence awakens in them ignites an all-encompassing love with one another. But they soon find their bonds--forged in joy, and fused by fear--must weather threats that originate from beyond the dark forests of their childhoods, and come at them from institutions, from one another, and ultimately, from within themselves.
The Other's Gold follows the four friends as each makes a terrible mistake, moving from their wild college days to their more feral days as new parents. With one part devoted to each mistake--the Accident, the Accusation, the Kiss, and the Bite--this complex yet compulsively readable debut interrogates the way that growing up forces our friendships to evolve as the women discover what they and their loved ones are capable of, and capable of forgiving. A joyful, big-hearted book that perfectly evokes the bittersweet experience of falling in love with friendship, the experiences of Lainey, Ji Sun, Alice, and Margaret are at once achingly familiar and yet shine with a brilliance and depth all their own.
Ratings and reviews
5.0
1 review
lowell brower
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July 16, 2019
The best book of 2019! The Other's Gold is must-read, un-put-down-able, absolutely triumphant debut novel by a major new literary voice. In short: it's a perfect story, populated by some of the richest characters ever written! I read it in one sitting, and restarted it immediately. Simultaneously funny and heartbreaking, joyous and mournful, hopeful and elegiac, Ames' hugely powerful and immensely enjoyable exploration of friendship, family, endurance, and forgiveness chronicles the lives four unforgettable female friends: Alice, Lainey, Ji Sun, and Margaret. In four beautifully interlaced sections, we watch their multidimensional friendship begin, evolve, falter, strengthen, and transform as each lovingly-rendered character makes a momentous mistake, and endeavors to navigate its aftermath, together and alone. Narrated with breathtaking emotional intimacy, in searingly brilliant and poetic prose, Ames' big-hearted book left me devastated, inspired, and changed. For anyone who loves Lorrie Moore's humor and wit, Meg Wolitzer's leap-off-the-page characters, George Saunders' bottomless empathy, Johnathan Franzen's insight into families and foibles (or, more simply, for anyone who loves thematic richness, riveting drama, intimate characterization, or beautiful prose), I cannot recommend Elizabeth Ames' bravura debut highly enough - each page is worth far more than its own weight in gold. Read it and you will be oh so richly rewarded. Five incandescent gold stars!!
About the author
Elizabeth Ames is graduate of the University of Michigan MFA program, where she won the Hopwood Award. Her short stories have appeared in Ninth Letter and Third Coast. Born and raised in Wisconsin, she currently lives in a Harvard dormitory with her husband, two children, and a few hundred undergraduates. This is her first novel.
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