Where We Live

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In the third and final novel in the Lund sibling series, Where We Live continues the story of four siblings, separated in childhood, reunited and now middle-aged, as they navigate urban Vancouver life, work, relationships, and parenting in the late 2010s. With their familial bond shaped by their divergent adult experiences as well as their shared early childhood in a rural West Coast community, the lives of these siblings cross, separate, and rejoin yet again, in paths informed by nature and by nurture. Subject to the pressures of their environment and remembered or forgotten family history each sibling struggles to realize their aspirations in their search for a true home.

AUTHOR

Karen Hofmann

Karen Hofmann lives in Kamloops, B.C. She has been published in Arc, Prairie Fire, The Malahat Review, and The Fiddlehead. Her book Water Strider was shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Prize at the 2009 BC Book Awards, and “The Burgess Shale” was shortlisted at the 2012 CBC Short Fiction Contest. Her first novel After Alice was released in Spring 2014.

Reviews

Approaching middle age Cleo Mandalay and Cliff go through a year of unsettling changes to their careers families homes and hearts As they each discover the future is not what they expected they must reimagine who they are and where they want to be In deft clear prose author Karen Hofmann unveils the simple miraculous transformations that are always at work though seldom noticed in everyday life Where We Live is a fine and richly textured work of art a story both brilliant and wise Catherine Hunter author of After Light and St Boniface Elegies

With keen insight that is often astonishing Karen Hofmann describes the fragility of human connections with all their beauty and their pain She adopts a cleareyed even unflinching focus while still managing to convey enormous empathy for her characters despiteor perhaps because oftheir flaws The Lund siblings are very real very human and completely unforgettable At the end of the book I experienced the satisfaction of having come to know and care for these individuals and the regret in having to say goodbye Margie Taylor author of Rose Addams and Harrow Road

Home is the resonant concept at the heart of this trilogy about the Lund siblings Hofmann details their widely varied personal and professional lives with intelligence and compassion As always her writing is informed by an insightful ethos of socioeconomic and environmental sustainability Where We Live is an absorbing and immensely satisfying finale Alice Zorn author of Five Roses and Arrhythmia

Where We Live is a deeply gratifying conclusion to the Lund family saga Karen Hofmann is at her very best her prose moves with remarkable grace illuminating the complex inner lives of her characters who reflect back to us profound truths about aging parenthood grief betrayal and desire While each of the characters ultimately finds their own sense of home they also come away transformed on the precipice of something new and full of possibility Youll leave this novel bursting with hope Corinna Chong author of The Whole Animal and Belindas Rings