不属于我们的世纪 – We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas

艾琳·图穆蒂自小跟随她的爱尔兰移民父母生活在皇后区伍德赛德的一间公寓里。长期的艰困生活，让她一心想要彻底摆脱这个弥漫着喧闹和心酸的地方，去创造属于自己的一切。长大后的艾琳遇见了一位叫做埃德·利里的科学家，埃德的举止风度完全不同于以往她所认识的所有令她厌恶的男人。她认定这个人就是自己的完美伴侣，他也会将她领向那个自己渴望栖息的世界。他们结婚了，但艾琳很快就发现丈夫并不像她那样向往着同一个不断变大的美国梦。艾琳鼓励丈夫去追求更好的工作，更棒的朋友，更大的房子。但随着时间流逝，她发现丈夫与日俱增的抵触心理其实另有隐情。

一场避无可避的黑暗笼罩了他们的生活，在得知实情之后，艾琳与丈夫和他们的儿子康奈尔却拼命维系着表面的平静，更想要抓住渺茫的机会，和他们期待已久的未来…

Epic in scope, heroic in character, and masterful in prose, We Are Not Ourselves is a multigenerational portrait of the Irish American Leary family.

Born in 1941, Eileen Tumulty is raised by her Irish immigrant parents in Woodside, Queens, in an apartment where the mood swings between heartbreak and hilarity, depending on whether guests are over and how much alcohol has been consumed.

When Eileen meets Ed Leary, a scientist whose bearing is nothing like those of the men she grew up with, she thinks she’s found the perfect partner to deliver her to the cosmopolitan world she longs to inhabit. They marry, and Eileen quickly discovers Ed doesn’t aspire to the same, ever bigger, stakes in the American Dream.

Eileen encourages her husband to want more: a better job, better friends, a better house, but as years pass it becomes clear that his growing reluctance is part of a deeper psychological shift. An inescapable darkness enters their lives, and Eileen and Ed and their son Connell try desperately to hold together a semblance of the reality they have known, and to preserve, against long odds, an idea they have cherished of the future.

Through the Learys, novelist Matthew Thomas charts the story of the American Century, particularly the promise of domestic bliss and economic prosperity that captured hearts and minds after WWII. The result is a riveting and affecting work of art; one that reminds us that life is more than a tally of victories and defeats, that we live to love and be loved, and that we should tell each other so before the moment slips away.

Epic in scope, heroic in character, masterful in prose, We Are Not Ourselves heralds the arrival of a major new talent in contemporary fiction.

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