Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for Very Cold People by Sarah Manguso - Available

Very Cold People

A Novel

by Sarah Manguso
Rebecca Lowman
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • The masterly debut novel from “an exquisitely astute writer” (The Boston Globe), about growing up in—and out of—the suffocating constraints of small-town America.
LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD • “Compact and beautiful . . . This novel bordering on a novella punches above its weight.”—The New York Times
“Very Cold People reminded me of My Brilliant Friend.”—The New Yorker

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, NPR, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Good Housekeeping
“My parents didn’t belong in Waitsfield, but they moved there anyway.”

For Ruthie, the frozen town of Waitsfield, Massachusetts, is all she has ever known.
Once home to the country’s oldest and most illustrious families—the Cabots, the Lowells: the “first, best people”—by the tail end of the twentieth century, it is an unforgiving place awash with secrets.
 
Forged in this frigid landscape Ruthie has been dogged by feelings of inadequacy her whole life. Hers is no picturesque New England childhood but one of swap meets and factory seconds and powdered milk. Shame blankets her like the thick snow that regularly buries nearly everything in Waitsfield.
 
As she grows older, Ruthie slowly learns how the town’s prim facade conceals a deeper, darker history, and how silence often masks a legacy of harm—from the violence that runs down the family line to the horrors endured by her high school friends, each suffering a fate worse than the last. For Ruthie, Waitsfield is a place to be survived, and a girl like her would be lucky to get out alive.
In her eagerly anticipated debut novel, Sarah Manguso has written, with characteristic precision, a masterwork on growing up in—and out of—the suffocating constraints of a very old, and very cold, small town. At once an ungilded portrait of girlhood at the crossroads of history and social class as well as a vital confrontation with an all-American whiteness where the ice of emotional restraint meets the embers of smoldering rage, Very Cold People is a haunted jewel of a novel from one of our most virtuosic literary writers.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 8, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593504703
      • File size: 125182 KB
      • Duration: 04:20:47

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 25, 2021
      A solemn yet deeply empathic bildungsroman, Manguso’s debut novel (after the essay collection 300 Arguments) centers on a girl whose life unravels in a fictional Massachusetts town. The only child of a European Jewish mother and an Italian father, Ruth has spent her entire youth in Waitsfield, a place defined by its colonial histories and class differences. She shares stories of her personal and ancestral history in abbreviated accounts, delving into how the traumas of poverty pervaded every aspect of her and her family’s life, as well as how the abuse that Ruth and her friends continuously suffered at the hands of their parents, teachers, and caretakers impinged on their ability to imagine a life outside of Waitsfield. The vignettes don’t have a lot of momentum, but as a whole they render a sweeping view of a girl’s troubled coming-of-age with a solemnity that both wonders at and highlights the heartbreakingly persistent hope that lies at the core of Ruth’s life story. Manguso’s complex work will inspire reflection. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      We applaud narrators who portray many people, but Lowman does the harder, subtler job of voicing the many moods of a single character. When Ruth is rueful, Lowman sounds it. Joyous. Same. When she's disgusted, her tone and tempo match. Ruth is born into a family of outsiders in a snow-swept New England town at the end of the twentieth century. The houses have placards. The people behind those placards are still looking back at the MAYFLOWER and a passage in which, we suspect, the accretion of status was no fun at all. Growing up in this family and this town means navigating a house of horrors, sometimes stately, other times mundane. Hard-core romantics, turn away from this audiobook. If you're at all curious, though, about what's really going on, then lend an ear. It's both genuine and profound. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      June 1, 2022

      Born in Waitsfield, MA, Ruthie finds herself in a cold family, surrounded by cold people in a cold town. Life is quite difficult for her as she and her family negotiate mental illness, poverty, and unpleasant relatives. Ruthie's soliloquy begins with her earliest memories and carries us through until her escape as a young adult. The landscape of her childhood is a very old Massachusetts town filled with the likes of the Cabots and the Lowells, old families from old money that have long since passed their zenith. While listeners might wish for a more cohesive timeline, in the end, we learn that everyone is struggling in their own way. VERDICT Rebecca Lowman's narration, with her warm but uncertain voice, pulls listeners in to Manguso's debut novel and helps negotiate Ruthie's chaotic life. She uses pauses and speed to bring authenticity to this character's story so that listeners feel as if a friend is telling them closely guarded secrets.--Laura Trombley

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading
Check out what's being checked out right now This service is made possible by the CLAMS member libraries and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.