Ellen In Pieces: A Novel

In this witty, compelling and genre-bending novel, a single mother navigates the loves, lusts and losses of middle age to arrive at a final, bittersweet contentment.

Ellen McGinty: sexy, impulsive, loud-mouthed, chock full of regrets. In middle age she sells the house she raised her daughters in, slips off the shell of her old life, and steps out for a first, tentative foray into real contentment--directly into the path of a man twenty years her junior. Her story explodes into multiple points of view. Through the eyes of her lover, Matt, her ex-husband, Larry, her two daughters (one a former addict), her grandson, and a friend who both supports and betrays her, we watch Ellen negotiate the middle years of her tumultuous life as the pieces of who she is finally come together. In its entirety, Ellen in Pieces explores love in its varied forms, the nature of regret (and the possibility of recovery from it), and that greatest human test, mortality.

Exquisitely written, absorbing and intelligent, this new novel by Caroline Adderson shows her at the top of her form. Ellen in Pieces is a deeply affecting story, an emotional mirror for all our lives.