Same As It Ever Was: An Evening with Claire Lombardo

The Book Stall is thrilled to welcome Claire Lombardo to the store on Tuesday, June 18 at 6:30 pm for a discussion featuring her new book, Same As It Ever Was! The New York Times bestselling author of the wonderfully immersive The Most Fun We Ever Had returns with another brilliantly observed family drama. In her ambitious sophomore novel, Ms. Lombardo again introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters, showcasing the signature wit, knife-sharp dialogue, knotty familial bonds, and profound emotional intelligence that made her debut such a breakout.

This event is free with registration. To register, please visit our website or CLICK HERE.

More About the Book: At fifty-seven, Julia Ames is living an improbably lovely life. Despite her inclination toward self-sabotage and prickly alienation, she has found herself with a husband she loves, two happy children, and a quiet, contented existence in the suburbs. When she bumps into an old friend that she hasn’t spoken to in years, a friend who almost ended her marriage decades prior, Julia finds herself re-examining her supposedly happy life. Compounded with a bombshell announcement from her son and her daughter’s impending departure for college, this chance meeting threatens to send Julia spinning out of control.

Daunted by a looming empty nest, Julia becomes consumed with her checkered past and with the chaos of her present. The novel follows Julia over the course of a few tumultuous months as well as the fifty-plus years that preceded them, from her chaotic childhood in Chicago to her fraught early days of marriage and motherhood. Same As It Ever Was examines the complicated trajectory of one woman’s life and asks what it takes to form, and keep, a family. Delving deep into the nature of relationships, Ms. Lombardo proves herself a definitive cartographer of the human heart and establishes herself among the finest novelists of her generation.

Publisher’s Weekly, in a starred review, says, “Pitch-perfect. . . Lombardo is compulsively readable and consistently funny, and it’s impossible to look away as Julia continues to self-sabotage. This domestic drama hits all the right notes.”

More About the Author: Claire Lombardo is the author of The Most Fun We Ever Had. She lives in Iowa City, where she has taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and works part-time as a bookseller at Prairie Lights Books.