Whiskey & Ribbons - by Leesa Cross-Smith (Paperback)

About the Book

Set in contemporary Louisville, Cross-Smith's mesmerizing first novel surrounding the death of a police officer is a requiem for marriage, friendship and family, from an author Roxane Gay has called "a consummate storyteller."

Book Synopsis

O, The Oprah Magazine's Best Books of the Summer

Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

Set in contemporary Louisville, Leesa Cross-Smith's mesmerizing first novel surrounding the death of a police officer is a requiem for marriage, friendship and family, from an author Roxane Gay has called "a consummate storyteller."

One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2018: Entertainment Weekly, Southern Living, Harper's BAZAAR, The Millions, Electric Lit, Book Riot, BookBub, Chicago Review of Books, POPSUGAR, Refinery29, NYLON, and SheReads

Evi--a classically-trained ballerina--was nine months pregnant when her husband Eamon was killed in the line of duty on a steamy morning in July. Now, it is winter, and Eamon's adopted brother Dalton has moved in to help her raise six-month-old Noah.

Whiskey & Ribbons is told in three intertwining, melodic voices: Evi in present day, as she's snowed in with Dalton during a freak blizzard; Eamon before his murder, as he prepares for impending fatherhood and grapples with the danger of his profession; and Dalton, as he struggles to make sense of his life next to Eamon's, and as he decides to track down the biological father he's never known.

In the vein of Jojo Moyes' After You, Whiskey & Ribbons explores the life that continues beyond loss, with a complicated brotherly dynamic reminiscent of Elizabeth Strout's The Burgess Boys. It's a meditation on grief, hope, motherhood, brotherhood and surrogate fatherhood. Above all, it's a novel about what it means--and whether it's possible--to heal.

Review Quotes

"Beautiful and brutal, a gut-punch and a poem--I love this book. I love its characters, their complicated tangle of desire and grief. I love its craft, the back and forth dance between memory and possibility. I found myself talking aloud to Evangeline: Let go, I whispered. Or maybe she whispered it to me. I don't know. She's inside of me now, my head and my heart. I'll tell you what: Cross-Smith is a master." --Megan Stielstra, The Wrong Way to Save Your Life

"Cross-Smith's thrilling debut novel, Whiskey and Ribbons, is as immediate and compelling as music. Her three lovers tell their stories, each turning over what we think we know, creating a moving triptych on love, desire, and grief, and the unexpected families life makes for us." --Alexander Chee, author of The Queen of the Night

"Leesa Cross-Smith's Whiskey & Ribbons is an unforgettable debut. The death of a police officer is at the heart of this powerful, moving polyphonic saga, and the stunning lyricism of the style only matches the heartbreaking poetry of its substance. Cross-Smith examines lovers, brothers, mothers, fathers and sons with such mammoth empathy that this is one of those books I find essential for making sense of our world today." --Porochista Khakpour, author of the novels Sons & Other Flammable Objects and The Last Illusion

"In Whiskey & Ribbons, Leesa Cross Smith has given us a story of decent, ardent-hearted friends thrust into an unimaginable situation, and its survivors respond with equally surprising grace to impossibly difficult circumstances. Here is a slim, elegant novel that is brilliantly defiant in what it refuses to mention, and clear-eyed in its focus on something we all need more of: a close look at good people navigating unthinkable tragedy." --Bonnie Nadzam, author of Lion: a Novel

"Written with the emotional impact of Ayobami Adebayo's Stay with Me, this work will appeal to lovers of literary fiction." --Library Journal

"Whiskey & Ribbons is the kind of book you cancel everything to curl up with. Don't even try to put it down; you won't be able to. Leesa Cross-Smith writes with an open heart and a deft touch, crafting a beautiful meditation on marriage, family, and the hope within loss. I fell in love with these characters. I joined them in their heartbreak, their lust, their yearning, and I missed them after the last page." --Lindsay Hunter, author of Eat Only When You're Hungry

"Leesa Cross-Smith is a consummate storyteller who uses her formidable talents to tell the oft-overlooked stories of people living in that great swath of place between the left and right coasts." --Roxane Gay, author Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body and Bad Femininst

About the Author

A PEN Open Book Award Nominee, Leesa Cross-Smith has been a finalist for the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and Iowa Short Fiction Award. She is the author of the short story collection Every Kiss a War and lives in Louisville, KY.