Our Homesick Songs
From Emma Hooper, critically acclaimed author of Etta and Otto and Russell and James, a People magazine “Pick of the Week,” comes a lyrical, charming, and mystical story of a family on the edge of extinction, and the different way each of them fights to keep hope, memory, and love alive.
The Connor family is one of the few that is still left in their idyllic fishing village, Big Running; after the fish mysteriously disappeared, most families had no choice but to relocate and find work elsewhere. Aidan and Martha Connor now spend alternate months of the year working at an energy site up north to support their children, Cora and Finn. But soon the family fears they’ll have to leave Big Running for good. And as the months go on, plagued by romantic temptations new and old, the emotional distance between the once blissful Aidan and Martha only widens.
Between his accordion lessons and reading up on Big Running’s local flora and fauna, eleven-year-old Finn Connor develops an obsession with solving the mystery of the missing fish. Aided by his reclusive music instructor Mrs. Callaghan, Finn thinks he may have discovered a way to find the fish, and in turn, save the only home he’s ever known. While Finn schemes, his sister Cora spends her days decorating the abandoned houses in Big Running with global flair—the baker’s home becomes Italy; the mailman’s, Britain. But it’s clear she’s desperate for a bigger life beyond the shores of her small town. As the streets of Big Running continue to empty Cora takes matters—and her family’s shared destinies—into her own hands.
In Our Homesick Songs, Emma Hooper paints a gorgeous portrait of the Connor family, brilliantly weaving together four different stories and two generations of Connors, full of wonder and hope. Told in Hooper’s signature ethereal style, each page of this incandescent novel glows with mythical, musical wonder.
PRAISE FOR OUR HOMESICK SONGS by EMMA HOOPER
“Lyrical…the town is filled with magic, and so is Hooper’s writing…Our Homesick Songs is a eulogy not just to a town but a lifestyle – one built on waves, and winds, and fish, and folklore.”—NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
“[A] haunting fable about the transformative power of hope.”—BOOKLIST (starred review)
“With stark prose, Hooper captures the desperation and difficulty of life on the edge of civilization while maintaining the foundation of tenderness as her characters take care of one another in the face of near-insurmountable struggle. Heartbreaking and empathetic, Hooper’s fine novel is a haunting evocation of changing times and the power of place.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“This delicate elegy for a dying way of life crescendos into a love song binding family members across the waters.”—KIRKUS REVIEWS
"Hooper has graced us readers once again with another beautifully moving story... a lyrical, charming, and mystical story of a family on the edge of extinction, and the different way each of them fights to keep hope, memory, and love alive."—CHECK IT OUT, KWIT
"A layered and affecting novel that is a stunning literary achievement...Hooper writes in a sparse prose that seems borne of the cold and landscape of Newfoundland. But she writes with a depth of feeling that imbues her tale with love and, at its laid-bare soul, “Our Homesick Songs” is a love story and a love song."—FREE LANCE STAR
“With a genius both searching and playful, Emma Hooper creates an endangered world aglow with musicality and invention, and a family who braces against loss with charm, humor, and hope. Our Homesick Songs is a brilliant and tender dream—a book with that rare ability to strike notes that are at once otherworldly, wholly human, and entirely unforgettable.”—AFFINITY KONAR, national bestselling author of MISCHLING
Emma Hooper
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