Keynote
A complex family drama with a Manhattan family court judge at its center.
About the Book
I Don’t Know How To Tell You This focuses on Judge Rachel Sugarman and her life both inside and outside the courtroom. Rachel is part of a close Jewish family whose lives are marked by significant emotional challenges, including the painful recognition that her beloved husband is slowly being diminished by memory loss, and the past trauma of her mother-in-law, a prickly Holocaust survivor who, in old age, continues to struggle with her grief.
Rachel’s career as a judge and the power she wields in her courtroom offer an intimate look at a woman navigating what is still, in the 21st century, a profession most often dominated by men. The novel explores the very topical issues of child and spousal abuse, which color the dark undercurrent of the courtroom scenes. And though it reflects serious issues, there is very clearly a pitch-black comic sensibility at work throughout the novel. By turns sad and touching and quirkily humorous, I Don’t Know How To Tell You This is vintage Marian Thurm.
Praise for I Don’t Know How To Tell You This
With heartbreaking clarity and profound compassion. . .Thurm’s spot-on thumbnail portraits and signature black humor leaven the appalling difficulties her [characters] face.
―Kirkus Reviews (starred)
A tender and heartfelt novel about families coming together and falling apart. Marian Thurm creates characters who are so warm and messy and gloriously human, you’ll want to stay with them forever. Only she could write a novel this funny about something so sad.
―Daisy Alpert Florin, author of My Last Innocent Year
I was bowled over by I Don’t Know How To Tell You This not only because this brave and beautiful novel reveals so poignantly the tragedy of dementia, but also because Marian Thurm, while giving us a family that has drunk and witnessed more than its fair share of darkness, nonetheless allows its members to cling to love and hope laced with humor. This is a perfectly crafted novel, resonant with meaning, one that refuses despair and elevates us all.
―Jonathan Wilson, author of The Red Balconye
About the Author
Marian Thurm is the author of nine novels and five short story collections, including Today Is Not Your Day, a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Her novel The Clairvoyant was a New York Times Notable Book. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Michigan Quarterly Review, Narrative Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, and many other magazines, and have been included in The Best American Short Stories, and numerous other anthologies. Her books have been translated into Japanese, Swedish, Dutch, German, and Italian. She has taught creative writing at Yale University and Barnard College, and in the MFA programs at Columbia University and Brooklyn College.