Emily Jeanne Miller

Harvard Book Store welcomes the author of Brand New Human Being EMILY JEANNE MILLER for a discussion of her latest novel, The News from the End of the World—the story of a dysfunctional New England family living together in Cape Cod.

About The News from the End of the World

When Vance Lake—broke, jobless, and recently dumped—takes refuge with twin brother Craig back home on Cape Cod, he unwittingly finds himself smack in the middle of a crisis that would test the bonds of even the most cohesive family, let alone the Lakes. Craig is strangely mournful and angry at equal turns. His exasperated wife, Gina, is on the brink of an affair. At the center of it all is seventeen-year-old Amanda: adored niece, rebellious daughter, and stubborn stepdaughter. She’s also pregnant.

Told in alternating points of view by each member of this colorful New England clan, and infused with the quiet charm of the Cape in the off-season, The News from the End of the World follows one family into a crucible of pent-up resentments, old and new secrets, and memories long buried. Only by coming to terms with their pasts, both separately and together, do they stand a chance of emerging intact.

Praise

"Is home the answer or the end of the road? A beautifully crafted, emotional portrait of a Cape Cod family whose teenage daughter may not be the only one out of options.  The austere beauty of the off-season landscape seems to bring out hard truths and scour away secrets.  I loved it." —Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand and The Summer Before the War

"Emily Jeanne Miller’s The News from the End of the World recalls Tolstoy’s line that 'every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,' an idea less tragic than simply true; shared pain is what solders us. This is a book about the soldering of one family, about the love between brothers and sisters and fathers and daughters all written in heartbreaking, true and gorgeous prose." —Lea Carpenter, author of Eleven Days

"Emily Jeanne Miller is a master storyteller. In her brilliant The News from the End of the World, she summons a way of seeing reminiscent of Virginia Woolf: the male characters are as vivid as the female, and as their stories unfold, you cannot look away. This moving and deeply satisfying novel weaves several stories over a New England weekend, without one false note. I will be thinking about the Lake family for a long time." —Robert Bausch, author of Far as the Eye Can See and A Hole in the Earth