Laurie Frankel
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This Is How It Always Is (The Book!)

8/30/2016

 
Don’t you hate it when writers are all, “I have a new book coming out,” but they don’t tell you what it’s about? Me too. How are you supposed to know whether you want to read it or not when you only have the cover to go on?
​
In this case though, the cover is awesome:
Picture
I had nothing to do with it. I take no credit. The cover is all down to the geniuses at Flatiron Books. It looks like sun and warm and mystery and promise. 
​
In the UK, they’ve sent out these gorgeous gold foil galleys with just a little bit of intriguing text. So same: warm, shiny, mystery, promise. Gold foil doesn’t usually say minimalism, but that’s just the kind of miracle the book designers at Headline Publishing pull off.
Picture
None of which really tells you what the book is about because covers are so much better when they aren’t on the nose.
But one still wants to know. So…

My sexy pitch is:
This is a book about a family with a secret. And families with secrets don’t get to keep them forever. 

My provocative pitch is:
This is a book about how children change…and then change the world.

My romantic pitch is:
This is a book about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family.

My what-the-hell-does-the-title-mean explanation is:
This is a book about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again; parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts; children grow but not always according to plan.

And — thanks for being patient — my just-tell-me-what-the-damn-book-is-about pitch is:
THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS tells the story of a family with five boys, the youngest of whom becomes a girl.

This post has been mostly informational. Pbbbttth. Next up: Intrigue. Personal revelations. Tell alls. All that good stuff.
uli
2/19/2017 09:30:55 am

Thank you so much for writing your wonderful, heartfelt book, you have given me a tremendous gift by sharing this.

B. A. Shulman
3/28/2017 06:45:45 pm

I found this book to be thrilling, frightening, exhilarating, funny, sad, uplifting, and a great deal more. Although I transitioned late in life, all the feelings I have felt while growing up with a terrible secret came back to me while reading, so much so that there were times that I had to put it down to get my heart rate and breathing under control.

The book is beautifully and sensitively written, and as one who has suffered and fought for many years before finally making peace with myself, I could only wish that everyone was as loving and understanding as Ms Frankel must surely be.

Michelle
5/22/2017 08:26:18 am

I just finished "This Is How it Always Is."
I loved it. Thank you for writing it.
I will be a different human going forward because of it.
You are succeeding in making this world a better place.

Diane Hansen link
7/22/2017 08:56:28 am

Thank you! My book group is discussing your book tomorrow evening! I'm going to ask members to donate their copy to the lending shelves at my office. I am a therapist, storyteller and work with children with a variety of differences. Truly everyone needs to read and share this healing work. A Seattle-ite now in Tucson, I invite you to come down and share!





Comments are closed.

    About The Author

    Laurie Frankel writes novels (reads novels, teaches other people to write novels, raises a small person who reads and would like someday to write novels) in Seattle, Washington where she lives on a nearly vertical hill from which she can watch three different bridges while she's staring out her windows between words. She's originally from Maryland and makes good soup.

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  • Books
    • One Two Three
    • This Is How It Always Is
    • Goodbye For Now
    • The Atlas of Love
  • About
  • bits & pieces
  • Book Clubs
  • Contact
  • Paris 2023