New Year's Eve [Paperback]

Lisa Grunwald (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1998

From the author of "The Theory of Everything" comes an engrossing family drama with touches of the supernatural. When an accident takes the life of her son, a young mother is astounded to learn that her twin sister's child claims to be able to communicate with him in heaven.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Ghosts haunt the pages of Lisa Grunwald's novel, New Year's Eve. The book opens on New Year's Eve 1985. Erica and her twin sister, Heather, are celebrating the occasion as they do every year, with their husbands and widowed father. Both women are pregnant, due within weeks of each other. Over the years, the sisters have grown apart, and with the death of their mother, their already distant father has become even more difficult to reach. When the babies are born a few months later, it seems that these new "twins" will become the bond reuniting this family. Then, a few years later, Heather's son, David, is killed in an accident and Erica's daughter begins receiving "visits" from him. Soon, the visits drive this family even farther apart than before as Heather desperately clings to the tenuous connection with her dead son while Erica fights to keep her daughter rooted among the living.

Among the chapters detailing the sisters' present lives are Erica's recollections of past New Year's Eves, each fragment of memory a piece in the mosaic that is family history. As Erica soon discovers, memory can be as haunting as any ghost. With sure, understated prose, Grunwald explores the mysteries of familial love, the power of the past, and the limits of memory and of forgetting. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

On New Year's Eve, the Marks family has traditionally gathered in their Manhattan home to waltz, drink champagne, watch Guy Lombardo on TV and watch the globe drop in Times Square. On New Year's Eve 1990, in a scene near the end of this strong new novel by Grunwald (The Theory of Everything), narrator Erica breaks with tradition and separates herself, husband Edgar and daughter Sarah to nourish her home without the interference of her controlling father and twin sister, Heather. This moment is the fruition of a well-crafted tale of family secrets, memories and myths. Tensions in the family begin to escalate after David, Heather's four-year-old son, is killed in an accident, and Sarah immediately believes he speaks to her from beyond the grave. Ironically, Dad and Heather, both medical doctors, prescribe playing along with Sarah's obsession, a dollhouse she and Heather are furnishing for David; they even engage a shady channeler who promises communication with the dead. Meanwhile, Erica, a university professor of mythology, grimly endures psychiatric help for her child and firmly resists her family's denial of death's finality. Flashbacks to the twins' childhood rivalry reveal the origins of their constant psychological tug-of-war (they even engage in a race to get pregnant) and how the family has sought a center since Mom's death. The denouement, an integration of story time and myth time, is poignant, and healing, with the promise of new life. It contrasts sharply with the climax, whose cruelty is all the more intense because it suggests that it is human nature to forget, time after time, the inhuman pain we inflict in the sacred name of "family." First serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild alternate selection; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (August 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446674036
• ISBN-13: 978-0446674034
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #665,196 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lisa Grunwald is the author of the novels Whatever Makes You Happy, New Year's Eve, The Theory of Everything, and Summer. Along with her husband, Stephen J. Adler, she edited the bestselling anthologies Women's Letters and Letters of the Century. Grunwald is a former contributing editor to Life and a former features editor of Esquire. Find her on Facebook, at Lisa Grunwald's Author Page, follow her on Twitter at lisa_grunwald, or at www.lisagrunwald.net

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars compelling exploration of death, need for family,, March 3, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: New Year's Eve (Hardcover)

I found this book to be one which haunted me in many ways. The story of sibling rivalry, family secrets and a search for new beginnings. A story of how one moment in time can alter one's path forever. A quick read but one which stays with you much longer than it takes to read

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A non-supernatural ghost story, October 21, 1999

By 

stu21202 "phallophile" (Baltimore, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New Year's Eve (Paperback)

Although this novel may be labeled a "ghost story",it is not the kind of supernatural, Stephen King-type thriller we'veassociated with such a label. It is never clear whether something out of the ordinary is going on, which is only fitting, since this is not the focus of the book. Instead, we are treated to a compelling and realistic depiction of the strained relationship between two estranged sisters. I agree with a previous reviewer. This is one of the best books I've read recently.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books I've ever read, January 13, 2009

By 

J. B. Santo (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: New Year's Eve (Hardcover)

This book is about how we all deal with mourning differently, but its handled with a light, deft, hand that makes you think about the theme later, after you've enjoyed the story. The characters are rich, the plot moves,and the concept is brilliant. The only thing I don't like about this book is the title, and that's only because it doesn't telegraph how rich this book is. Because I'm a writer, I was just asked to do a paragraph on my favorite "forgotten book," for a blog. I read A LOT of books, and there was no contest. This was it. Jan Brogan