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The children's house

The children's house

A love song to the idea of families in all their mysteries and complexities, their different configurations and the hope that creates them. Marina and her husband, Jacob, were each born on a kibbutz in Israel. They meet years later at a university in California, when Jacob is a successful psychiatrist with a young son, Ben, from a disastrous marriage. The family moves to a brownstone in Harlem, formerly a convent inhabited by elderly nuns. Outside the house one day Marina encounters Constance, a young refugee from Rwanda, and her toddler, Gabriel. Unmoored and devastated, Constance and Gabriel quickly come to depend on Marina; and her bond with the little boy intensifies. The pure, blinding love that it is possible to feel for children not our own is the thread that weaves through The Children's House. When Marina learns some disturbing news about her long-disappeared mother, Gizela, she leaves New York in search of the loose ends of her life. As Christmas nears, her tight-knit, loving family, along with Constance and Gabriel, join Marina in her mother's former home, with a startling consequence, an act that will transform all of their lives forever. Alice Nelson skilfully weaves together these shared stories about the terrible things humans are capable of into a beautifully told, hope-filled novel exploring the profound consolations that we can find in each other.

Item Information
Barcode Shelf Location Collection Volume Ref. Status Due Date
920405814 F NEL
Adult Fiction   . Available .  
. Catalogue Record 61677 ItemInfo Beginning of record . Catalogue Record 61677 ItemInfo Top of page .
Catalogue Information
Field name Details
RSN 000063637538
ISBN 9780143791188
Call Number A823.4
Dates Nelson, Alice 1980-,
Name of Publisher North Sydney, NSW : Vintage Books Australia, 2018.
Attachments 24 cm.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references.
Summary A love song to the idea of families in all their mysteries and complexities, their different configurations and the hope that creates them. Marina and her husband, Jacob, were each born on a kibbutz in Israel. They meet years later at a university in California, when Jacob is a successful psychiatrist with a young son, Ben, from a disastrous marriage. The family moves to a brownstone in Harlem, formerly a convent inhabited by elderly nuns. Outside the house one day Marina encounters Constance, a young refugee from Rwanda, and her toddler, Gabriel. Unmoored and devastated, Constance and Gabriel quickly come to depend on Marina; and her bond with the little boy intensifies. The pure, blinding love that it is possible to feel for children not our own is the thread that weaves through The Children's House. When Marina learns some disturbing news about her long-disappeared mother, Gizela, she leaves New York in search of the loose ends of her life. As Christmas nears, her tight-knit, loving family, along with Constance and Gabriel, join Marina in her mother's former home, with a startling consequence, an act that will transform all of their lives forever. Alice Nelson skilfully weaves together these shared stories about the terrible things humans are capable of into a beautifully told, hope-filled novel exploring the profound consolations that we can find in each other.
Subject Domestic Fiction
Australian Fiction
Family secrets
Interpersonal relations
Harlem (New York, N.Y.)
Catalogue Information 61677 Beginning of record . Catalogue Information 61677 Top of page .