Alice Hoffman

Harvard Book Store welcomes ALICE HOFFMAN—the bestselling author of more than thirty works of fiction, including The Marriage of Opposites, Here on Earth, The Museum of Extraordinary Things, and The Dovekeepers—for a discussion of her latest novel, Faithful.

About Faithful

Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend’s future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt.

What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Faithful is the story of a survivor, filled with emotion—from dark suffering to true happiness—a moving portrait of a young woman finding her way in the modern world. A fan of Chinese food, dogs, bookstores, and men she should stay away from, Shelby has to fight her way back to her own future. In New York City she finds a circle of lost and found souls—including an angel who’s been watching over her ever since that fateful icy night.

Here is a character you will fall in love with, so believable and real and endearing, that she captures both the ache of loneliness and the joy of finding yourself at last. For anyone who’s ever been a hurt teenager, for every mother of a daughter who has lost her way, Faithful is a roadmap.

Alice Hoffman’s “trademark alchemy” (USA TODAY) and her ability to write about the “delicate balance between the everyday world and the extraordinary” (WBUR) make this an unforgettable story. With beautifully crafted prose, Alice Hoffman spins hope from heartbreak in this profoundly moving novel.

Praise

“Faithful is a poignant novel about grief, guilt, and recovery. Alice Hoffman is a wonderful storyteller.” —Tom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of Election, Little Children, and The Leftovers 

Alice Hoffman is a spectacular writer—generous and compassionate, elegant and fierce—and Faithful is both a sweeping page-turner and a gorgeous, heartbreaking exploration of family, faith, and love. This novel is as captivating as it is impossible to put down. I loved it." —Molly Antopol, critically acclaimed author of The UnAmericans