When I ran away

Title:

When I ran away

Author:

Bannister, Ilona, author.

Personal Author:

Bannister, Ilona, author.

ISBN:

9780385546171

9780593081761

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

--- pages ; -- cm

Abstract:

"A rich, bighearted debut that takes us from working-class Staten Island in the wake of the September 11th attacks to upper crust London a decade later, revealing a story of loss, motherhood, and love found in the most impossible of places, perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes and Ann Napolitano"-- Provided by publisher.

Subject Term:

September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001 -- Fiction.

Brothers -- Death -- Fiction.

Motherhood -- Fiction.

Genre:

Romance fiction.

Novels.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

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Summary

Longlisted for the Center for Fiction's 2021 First Novel Prize * A rich, bighearted debut that takes us from working-class Staten Island in the wake of the September 11th attacks to moneyed London a decade later, revealing a story of loss, motherhood, and love.

As the Twin Towers collapse, Gigi Stanislawski flees her office building and escapes lower Manhattan on the Staten Island Ferry. Among the crying, ash-covered, and shoeless passengers, Gigi, unbelievably, finds someone she recognizes--Harry Harrison, a British man and a regular at her favorite coffee shop. Gigi brings Harry to her parents' house, where they watch the television replay the planes crashing for hours, and she waits for the phone call that will never come: the call from Frankie, her younger brother.

Ten years later, Gigi, now a single mother consumed with bills and unfulfilled ambitions, meets Harry, again by chance, and they fall deeply, headlong in love. But their move to London and their new baby--which Gigi hoped would finally release her from the past--leave her feeling isolated, raw, and alone with her grief. As Gigi comes face-to-face with the anguish of her brother's death and her rage at the unspoken pain of motherhood, she must somehow find the light amid all the darkness. Startlingly honest and shot through with unexpected humor, When I Ran Away is an unforgettable first novel about love--for our partners, our children, our mothers, and ourselves--pushed to its outer limits.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A homesick New Yorker suffering from postpartum depression completely loses it in London. We meet Gigi in the middle of the second-worst day of her life, a Wednesday in August 2016, when she walks out on her husband and two children, all three screaming and crying, and checks into the Grand Euro Star Lodge Hotel, where she will drink wine, watch her beloved Real Housewives of New Jersey, and try to shove her body into what the English call a "half bathtub." The next section of the book revisits what was surely the actual worst day of her life, Sept. 11, 2001: Her only sibling was at an interview in one of the towers. The one redeeming factor of that day was that she met Harry, a kind and elegant Brit who became her future husband, on the Staten Island Ferry. Fate keeps them apart for quite a while, and by the time they meet again, Gigi is raising a child--her dead brother's dead girlfriend's son. This time, they seal the deal, and before long Staten Island Gigi is installed in a posh house in London where she is miserable beyond belief. The older boy, Johnny, goes to a fancy private school where Gigi feels completely out of place (her class consciousness and awareness of other women's clothing, accoutrements, and bodies is acute), and her new baby, Rocky, is the product of a Caesarian birth so traumatic that she is more or less destroyed, emotionally and physically. How much can one woman take? That is the question this novel asks, furiously, impatiently, and without too many niceties of plot. The author's bio, perfectly parallel to Gigi's at least in the outlines, suggests that Bannister's impulse is autobiographical; who could or would make this up? Gigi is sharp and funny and endearing enough that you will want to stick with her through the whole nightmare, as if she needed you to hold her hand. A searing account of the pain and rage motherhood can sometimes produce. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.