Jennifer Gilmore

In this exquisitely written and emotionally charged young adult debut, Jennifer Gilmore explores how sometimes the wounds you can't see are the most painful. Did you know your entire life can change in an instant? For sixteen-year-old Lizzie Stoller

We Were Never Here

Acclaimed author Jennifer Gilmore’s intimate and achingly beautiful novel deftly explores the role that chance and choice play in shaping the lives of two teenagers who are separated by sixteen years, but whose lives are intertwined. "This emotional, visceral novel haunted me in the best ways. Jennifer Gilmore has written something of real depth, which will leave readers thinking for a long time about the lives that other people lead, as well as the ones they might have led. If Only is gripping and shiveringly beautiful; a true achievement.”—Meg Wolitzer, bestselling author of The Interestings and Belzhar BEFORE: When Bridget imagined her life at sixteen, it didn’t look like this. She didn’t think that her boyfriend would dump her for another girl. And she certainly didn’t think that she would be pregnant. With just a few months until she gives birth, Bridget must envision an entirely new future—one for her baby. But as she sifts through the many paths and the many people who want to parent her child, she can’t help but feel that there is no right decision. AFTER: Ivy doesn’t know much about her birth mother. She knows that she is now the same age Bridget was when she placed Ivy for adoption. She knows that Bridget was the one who named her. And she knows that fifteen years ago Bridget disappeared from Ivy’s and her adoptive moms’ lives. Ivy wants to discover more about herself, but as she goes to find Bridget, she can’t help but feel that the risks might far outweigh the benefits of knowing where she comes from and why her birth mother chose to walk away.

If Only

Caught in the throes of such challenges as a new college year, adolescence and extreme religious beliefs, the Goldstein family of 1979 Washington, D.C. is further upended by Dennis Goldstein's government job in the shifting political landscape of the Cold War.

A Novel

Something Red

Applying for an open adoption after several unsuccessful years of trying to conceive, Jesse and Ramon are disheartened by the bureaucratic labyrinth of red tape, training sessions and approvals they endure as well as their being targeted by con artists, a situation that challenges their views about culture, class and changing family dynamics.

The Mothers

Golden Country, Jennifer Gilmore's masterful and irreverent reinvention of the Jewish American novel, captures the exuberance of the American dream while exposing its underbelly -- disillusionment, greed, and the disaffection bred by success. As Gilmore's charmingly flawed characters witness and shape history, they come to embody America's greatness, as well as its greatest imperfections. Spanning the first half of the twentieth century, Golden Country vividly brings to life the intertwining stories of three immigrants seeking their fortunes -- the handsome and ambitious Seymour, a salesman-turned-gangster-turned-Broadway-producer; the gentle and pragmatic Joseph, a door-to-door salesman who is driven to invent a cleanser effective enough to wipe away the shame of his brother's mob connections; and the irresistible Frances Gold, who grows up in Brooklyn, stars in Seymour's first show, and marries the man who invents television. Their three families, though inex-tricably connected for years, are brought together for the first time by the engagement of Seymour's son and Joseph's daughter. David and Miriam's marriage must endure the inheritance of not only their parents' wealth but also the burdens of their past. Epic and comic, poignant and wise, Golden Country introduces readers to an extraordinary new voice in fiction.

Jennifer Gilmore

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