Description

“Laurie Colwin’s beautiful final book, A Big Storm Knocked It Over, is funny and moving and rich with complicated happiness—a love story for anyone who tends to overthink things, a comic novel about trying to find a place in the world.” — Maile Meloy, author of Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

In her fifth and final novel, acclaimed author Laurie Colwin explores marriage and friendship, motherhood and careers, as experienced by a cast of delightfully idiosyncratic Manhattanites. At once a hilarious social commentary and an insightful, sophisticated modern romance, A Big Storm Knocked It Over stands as a living tribute to one of contemporary fiction’s most original and beloved voices.

In her late thirties, Jane Louise Parker has just married a man whose native decency leaves her almost breathless at her good fortune. After the wedding, she returns to work at a small and tony publishing house whose finances are in disarray. Alongside her best friend, Edie, Jane Louise patiently waits to become pregnant, wondering if a baby will provide a sense of rootedness that still seems to elude her. When that longed-for child arrives, it transforms the Parkers’ lives in a way that is as unexpected as it is rapturous.

About the Author

Laurie Colwin is the author of five novels: Happy All the Time; Family Happiness; Goodbye Without Leaving; Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object; and A Big Storm Knocked It Over; three collections of short stories: Passion and Affect, Another Marvelous Thing, and The Lone Pilgrim; and two collections of essays: Home Cooking and More Home Cooking. She died in 1992.

Praise For…

"Laurie Colwin was utterly fearless in writing about happiness. . . . The novel makes the idea of happy endings for decent people seem entirely plausible, almost inevitable—no small feat for a writer these days and no small pleasure for a reader." — New York Times

“I would love. . . to start a Colwin renaissance.” — Elin Hilderbrand, on NPR’s “All Things Considered”

"From the first sentence of A Big Storm Knocked It Over, beguiling words and an engaging ambience combine to seduce us." — Washington Post Book World

"Laurie Colwin's last and most touching work." — Boston Globe

“Laurie Colwin’s beautiful final book, A Big Storm Knocked It Over, is funny and moving and rich with complicated happiness-a love story for anyone who tends to overthink things, a comic novel about trying to find a place in the world.” — Maile Meloy, author of Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

“I’ve read and re-read every book by Laurie Colwin. Acutely observed, beautifully written, witty, and profound—each one is a delight.” — Gretchen Rubin, author of Happier at Home and The Happiness Project