The Hole We're in - by Gabrielle Zevin (Paperback)

About the Book

"With The Hole We're In-a bold, timeless, yet all too timely novel about a troubled American family navigating an even more troubled America-award-winning author and screenwriter, Gabrielle Zevin, delivers a work that places her in the ranks of our shrewdest social observers and top literary talents. Meet the Pomeroys: a church-going family living in a too-red house in a Texas college town. Roger, the patriarch, has impulsively gone back to school, only to find his future ambitions at odds with the temptations of the present. His wife, Georgia, tries to keep things afloat at home, but she's been feeding the bill drawer with unopened envelopes for months and never manages to confront its swelling contents. In an attempt to climb out of the holes they've dug, Roger and Georgia make a series of choices that have catastrophic consequences for their three children-especially for Patsy, the youngest, who will spend most of her life fighting to overcome them. The Hole We're In shines a spotlight on some of the most relevant issues of today: over-reliance on credit, gender and class politics, and the war in Iraq. But it is Zevin's deft exploration of the fragile economy of family life that makes this a book for the ages"--

Book Synopsis

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, a bold, timeless novel about a troubled American family navigating an even more troubled America.

"Equal parts sharply funny and sobering, Zevin's portrait of a family in financial free fall captures the zeitgeist."--People

Meet the Pomeroys: a church-going family living in a Texas college town. Roger, the patriarch, has impulsively gone back to school, while his wife, Georgia, has been feeding the bill drawer with unopened envelopes for months. In an attempt to climb out of the holes they've dug, Roger and Georgia make a series of choices that have catastrophic consequences for their three children--especially for Patsy, the youngest, who will spend most of her life fighting to overcome them. The Hole We're In shines a spotlight on over-reliance on credit, gender and class politics, and the war in Iraq, but it is Zevin's deft exploration of the fragile economy of family life that makes this a book for the ages.

Review Quotes

Praise for The Hole We're In

"Equal parts sharply funny and sobering, Zevin's portrait of a family in financial free fall captures the zeitgeist."--People

"Every day newspaper articles chronicle families battered by the recession, circling the drain in unemployment and debt or scraping by with minimum-wage jobs. But no novel has truly captured that struggle until now. . . . [Zevin's characerts]--flawed, devoted, cranky, impetuous, utterly relatable--come blazingly alive . . . [in this chronicle of] how a once-loving family reacts when times get bad."--Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly (A-)

"In the provocative novel The Hole We're In . . . Gabrielle Zevin follows the Pomeroy [family] from 1998 to 2022 and addresses such issues as abortion, racism, and the emotional fallout of a stress-filled economy. Yet somehow the novel feels generous: We identify with the Pomeroys' troubles while we gasp at their casual brutality and marvel at [youngest daughter] Patsy, who journeys from oppressive Bible schools to military service in Iraq and, finally, to becoming a more loving mother than her own could have dreamed of being."--O, The Oprah Magazine

"The Hole We're In criticizes our rabid consumer culture, as well as the people who've bought into it without examining the actual or hidden costs. . . . Zevin's writing is often surprisingly, if darkly, funny, thanks to her wry and astute cultural observations. . . . [Main character] Patsy is flawed like the rest of her family, but she also has complex thoughts and tries to live without hypocrisy . . . Zevin breathes real life into this tough-girl vet, a heroine for our times, recognizable from life but new to fiction."--Malena Watrous, The New York Times Book Review

"It's hard to pinpoint exactly what is so compelling about Gabrielle Zevin's new novel. Merely summarizing the plot doesn't do the book justice--it's far more gripping than you'd expect from a family drama about the consequences of falling deeper and deeper into credit card debt. The real force of the novel, aside from Zevin's elegant, no-words-wasted prose, comes from her complicated, multifaceted characters, who have an astonishing capacity for extremes of both generous and selfish behavior."--Bookpage

"The Hole We're In is a story of financial lives, and it makes plain that the financial life of a family is just as important as, if not more important than, its religious life. Even more surprising: It's just as compelling as a novel that is primarily concerned with the emotional life of an American family. The Hole We're In feels current, like fresh journalism, a mirror held to modern times."--Paul Constant, The Stranger

"A sharp, funny, and timely look at a debt-ridden, God-fearing American family. . . . Zevin skewers a host of social issues from religious zealotry to the consequences of war to the entitlement mind-set of average Americans. What makes her book more than just a satire, though, is the deft way she thoroughly humanizes her characters. Readers will relate to and be moved by a beleaguered family's attempts to climb out of debt and dysfunction."--Booklist

"Blazing . . . Sharp . . . The Corrections for our recessionary times. . . . [Zevin] establishes herself as an astute chronicler of the way we spend now."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"An unforgettable novel about flawed characters desperate to get back to the garden of an idealized American Eden--where debts are forgiven, family secrets remain buried, everyone gets a good credit rating and a higher education, and spiritual redemption can be achieved with a new coat of paint."--Stephanie Kallos, author of Broken For You and Sing Them Home

"Gabrielle Zevin's sentences burst like fireworks off the page. Smart, sassy, and wise, The Hole We're In is a delightful treat."--Amanda Eyre Ward, author of How To Be Lost and Love Stories in this Town

"An unflinching depiction of an All-American family. Hypocritical, debt-ridden, God-fearing--there might not be much to admire about Zevin's characters, but there is much to love about them. The Hole We're In is a compelling read, and a true and honest novel."--Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of The Scenic Route

Praise for Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

"Delightful and absorbing . . . Zevin burns precisely zero calories arguing that game designers are creative artists of the highest order. Instead, she accepts that as a given, and wisely so, for the best of them plainly are . . . Expansive and entertaining . . . Dozens of Literary Gamers will cherish the world she's lovingly conjured. Meanwhile, everyone else will wonder what took them so long to recognize in video games the beauty and drama and pain of human creation."--Tom Bissell, New York Times

"A tour de force . . . A moving demonstration of the blended power of fiction and gaming . . . Zevin describes herself as 'a lifelong gamer.' That level of experience could very well have produced a story of hermetically sealed nostalgia impenetrable to anyone who doesn't still own a copy of 'Space Invaders.' But instead, she's written a novel that draws any curious reader into the pioneering days of a vast entertainment industry too often scorned by bookworms. And with the depth and sensitivity of a fine fiction writer, she argues for the abiding appeal of the flickering screen."--Ron Charles, Washington Post

"Whatever its subject, when a novel is powerful enough, it transports us readers deep into worlds not our own. That's true of Moby Dick, and it's certainly true of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which renders the process of designing a great video game as enthralling as the pursuit of that great white whale . . . There are . . . smart ruminations here about cultural appropriation, given that the game, Ichigo, is inspired by Japanese artist Hokusai's famous painting The Great Wave at Kanagawa . . . It's a big, beautifully written novel about an underexplored topic, that succeeds in being both serious art and immersive entertainment."--Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air

"Engrossing . . . Though it contains plenty of nostalgia for the pioneer age of 1990s game design, this isn't primarily a novel of nerdy insider references....Videogames happen to be the medium by which [Zevin's characters] best express themselves and share in each other's life."--Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

"Woven throughout [Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow] are meditations on originality, appropriation, the similarities between video games and other forms of art, the liberating possibilities of inhabiting a virtual world, and the ways in which platonic love can be deeper and more rewarding--especially in the context of a creative partnership--than romance."--The New Yorker

About the Author

Gabrielle Zevin is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of several critically acclaimed novels, including The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry and Young Jane Young. Her most recent novel is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, one of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, a selection of the Tonight Show's Fallon Book Blub, the winner of the Goodreads Choice Award, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, and one of the best books of the year according to the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, Entertainment Weekly, The Atlantic, Oprah Daily, Slate, NPR, and many others. She has also written books for young readers, including Elsewhere, which Time magazine named one of the 100 Best YA Books of All Time. Her novels have been translated into forty languages. She lives in Los Angeles.