Home Leave: A Novel
"[An] inventive debut . . . Captures the everywhere-but-nowhere paradoxes of our global world."—Vogue.com(A "Summer Book" selection)"[A] striking debut."—Bethanne Patrick,Washingtonian("A Top 10 Book for June")"Emotionally charged . . . The Kreigsteins are such authentic and complex characters that readers will be captivated by all of them."—Real Simple("The Best Books of 2014")"Stark but sweet, warm and wise,Home Leaveis an ambitious, well-executed debut. . . [it] will leave many readers hoping for another Sonnenberg novel full of the same humor, compassion and honesty."—Minneapolis Star-Tribune"The lucidity of Sonnenberg's prose . . .  is notable for its stark honesty and sharply observed details. . . . [An] ambitious debut."—Kirkus Reviews"Sonnenberg delivers a sympathetic, funny debut."—Publishers Weekly"Sonnenberg writes like a house on fire. The opening chapter alone is worth the price of this book."—ReadHerLikeanOpenBook.wordpress.com"HOME LEAVE is a rich, lively novel. Original in conception and set in various continents, it describes migrations as a contemporary existential condition. More importantly, it shows how this condition effects change, loss, and growth in the migrants. It offers many insights that are true."—Ha Jin, National Book Award winner forWaiting"It's hard to believe that this astonishing novel is Brittani Sonnenberg's first--she writes about family with wisdom, humor, and native daring. Here is Persephone's journey, undertaken by an entire family, the Kriegsteins, who ricochet through time zones, moving from Berlin to Singapore to Wisconsin to Shanghai to Atlanta, together and alone. Sonnenberg's prose is so vital and so enchanting that you will read this book in the dilated state of a world-traveler, with all of your senses wide open. Her family members are so well-drawn and complex that you'll close this book certain they exist."—Karen Russell, author ofSwamplandia!andVampires in the Lemon Grove"A captivatingtour de forcethat follows a nomadic family across generations and continents."—filmmaker Wim Wenders"Brittani Sonnenberg, like the best storytellers, shows us what we carry and what we leave behind as we travel across time zones (from America to Germany to Singapore), as we sit in airports, alone with the aloneness, as we love, live, grieve, and then try to live once more. Authentic, beautiful, bravely-told, HOME LEAVE is alive with characters you want to protect and hold-characters you won't want to leave behind."—Nami Mun, author ofMiles from Nowhere"HOME LEAVEis a remarkable debut, notable for the insightful intimacy of its characterization and a restless formal invention which perfectly evokes the uncertainties of expatriate life."—Peter Ho Davies, author ofThe Welsh Girl"Utterly convincing in its observations and confusions,Home Leavecaptures the realities of a globetrotting life with aplomb and poignancy.  What a marvel!"—Gish Jen, author ofWho's IrishandThe Love Wife