Recommended for you
Main Navigation
The Nest
The Nest
A warm, funny and acutely perceptive debut novel about four adult siblings and the fate of the shared inheritance that has shaped their choices and their lives.Every family has its problems. But even...
A warm, funny and acutely perceptive debut novel about four adult siblings and the fate of the shared inheritance that has shaped their choices and their lives.Every family has its problems. But even...
Reviews-
-
January 4, 2016
As four middle-aged Plumb siblings—Leo, Beatrice, Jack, and Melody—await the distribution of the trust fund their father had established for them as just an extra dividend in what he assumed would be their financially comfortable lives, they find themselves in dire economic straits. Unfortunately, the Nest (as they call the trust fund) had been used to settle the medical bills for a young woman who was badly injured when an inebriated Leo crashed his Porsche while they were inside it and getting intimate. Already a sadly dysfunctional family, the siblings plan to confront Leo. In a clever touch that reveals their hopes and desperation, each secretly has a drink in a different Manhattan bar before they convene to hear Leo swear he will get his act together and pay back the money. That Leo can’t be trusted is evident to the reader right away, but his segue into a meaningful domestic relationship with a literary agent seems hopeful. Meanwhile, his siblings try to avoid other financial crises, brought on by their own irresponsible behavior. Jack can’t repay the loans he has kept secret from his husband; Melody won’t be able to meet the mortgage payments on her home or forthcoming college tuition for her twin daughters; Bea has been forced to return the advance on the second novel she cannot write. In her debut, Sweeney spins a fast-moving, often-humorous narrative, and her portrait of each sibling is compassionate even as she reveals their foibles with emotional clarity. She sets scenes among iconic Manhattan watering places, capturing the tempo of various neighborhoods. Her writing is assured, energetic, and adroitly plotted, sweeping the reader along through an engrossing narrative that endears readers to the Plumb family for their essential humanity. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. -
February 15, 2016
This anticipated debut novel from Sweeney typifies the Internet meme "white people problems" even more than most current New York City-based literary fiction. It concerns the Plumb siblings, four middle-class New Yorkers, and their upcoming inheritance. The Plumb patriarch set aside a sum to become available to the four of them when the youngest, Melody, turned 40, in order to teach them a lesson about independence. The story opens with Leo Plumb high on cocaine and getting into a car wreck as he seduces a 19-year-old waitress, a scandal that puts the now hefty inheritance at risk. The story moves along briskly, shifting perspectives between the Plumbs and those associated with them. There is Melody, the youngest, and her teenage daughter's sexual awakening; Jack, an antique dealer, and his secret husband; Leo and publisher girlfriend Stephanie, who owns a brownstone in Brooklyn and rents the lower floor to a man who lost his wife in 9/11; and finally, Bea, the failed novelist. These stories are seamlessly combined as predictable tragedies and triumphs befall everyone. VERDICT Anyone with siblings will appreciate the character dynamics at play here, although they may not care much for each character individually. A fun, quick read recommended for fans of Emma Straub and Meg Wolitzer. [See Prepub Alert, 9/28/15.]--Kate Gray, Boston P.L., MA
Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
-
Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins
"The Nest ambles along so beautifully, what a pleasure to read! It's a wise, funny, compassionate family drama, full of irresistible surprises, witty conversations, and necessary emotional truths." — Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins
"A masterfully constructed, darkly comic, and immensely captivating tale...not only clever, but emotionally astute. Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney is a real talent." — Elizabeth Gilbert
"In her intoxicating first novel, Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney has written an epic family story that unfolds in a deeply personal way. The Nest is a fast-moving train and Sweeney's writing dares us to keep up. I couldn't stop reading or caring about the juicy and dysfunctional Plumb family." — Amy Poehler
"Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney delivers an acerbic satire of the leisure class while crafting an affecting human story that embroils us utterly in the fates of the Plumbs...This book keeps its blade sharp and its heart open." — Matthew Thomas, author of We Are Not Ourselves
"The Nest is a trenchant, darkly funny, and beautiful novel." — Bret Anthony Johnston
"Humor and delightful irony abound in this lively first novel." — New York Times Book Review
In her debut, Sweeney spins a fast-moving, often-humorous narrative, and her portrait of each sibling is compassionate even as she reveals their foibles with emotional clarity...assured, energetic, and adroitly plotted...an engrossing narrative that endears readers to the Plumb family for their essential humanity." — Publishers Weekly
"[A] generous, absorbing novel...Sweeney's endearing characters are quirky New Yorkers all... [a] lively novel. A fetching debut from an author who knows her city, its people, and their heart." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
This dysfunctional family novel, arriving in March, has best-seller potential written all over it. Scenes in The Nest, which follows four adult siblings and the inheritance shared between them, play out cinematically... certainly every bit as entertaining as a movie, too, and impossibly witty to boot. — Elle
"As siblings struggle with money woes, their humble inheritance turns into a full-blown cash cow. There's only one problem: the black sheep of the family." — Cosmopolitan, Cosmo Reads
"Nothing makes your dysfunctional clan look good like another's-meet the Plumb siblings, caught up in a trust fund battle, in Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's The Nest." — Marie Claire
Largehearted and witty, The Nest is a tender portrait of a family who must face their past choices and the consequences of their expected inheritance on their relationships and one another." — Buzzfeed
A compulsively readable novel that will keep you thinking about how expectations can shape our lives, and what happens when we can no longer rely on them." — PopSugar
"In this hilarious family saga, a group of adult siblings find their futures uncertain when they realize the shared inheritance they've been counting on might have been drained by their reckless older brother." — Entertainment Weekly, 9 Books You Have to Read in March
"A precise and deftly braided story...a breezier The Emperor's Children, by turns winsome, biting, and addictive." — New York magazine / Vulture
"All it will take is a few pages of this book's strikingly hypnotic prologue, and you'll be sucked in... Better...
