I Smile Back - Couverture souple

"Powerful. Koppelman's instincts help her navigate these choppy waters with inventiveness and integrity." --Los Angeles Times

"Koppelman explores with ruthless honesty a woman come undone." --Bookslut

"Koppelman mostly writes from inside Laney's disillusioned mind, ricocheting between the quotidian details of wife and motherhood and big-picture musings, forming exquisite stand-alone tone poems."--Elle

"We've been buzzing about this book all week, thanks to Sarah Silverman's career-changing performance... Koppelman writes about pain in a painfully beautiful way." --Glamour

"This crushing novel by the author of A Mouthful of Air is a shocking portrait of suburban ennui gone horribly awry. Koppelman's prose style is understated and crackling; each sentence is laden with a foreboding sense of menace. Like a crime scene or a flaming car wreck, it becomes impossible not to stare."--Publishers Weekly

"Laney Brooks is a woman in agony, suffering from an undefined malady that makes standard housewife ennui - boredom from carpooling or picking up dry cleaning - look like a picnic. Laney's despair, [is] ably depicted by Amy Koppelman in her affecting second novel." --Bookforum

"This book is a demanding read, with relentless pacing, a choppy, aggressive tone and a compelling battle for redemption." --Lilith Magazine

"Koppelman's writing is expressive and nuanced... [a] potent novel." --Booklist

"[Koppelman's] brave and challenging look beyond appearances of beauty to the ugly reality of a disturbed mind will remain with readers long after they've finished the book. Highly recommended for literary collections." --Library Journal

In the follow-up to her acclaimed debut, which drew comparisons from critics to Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and Kate Chopin's The Awakening, Amy Koppelman delivers an aggressive and unnerving portrait of a modern suburban woman. Laney Brooks acts out. Married with kids, she takes the drugs she wants, sleeps with the men she wants, disappears when she wants. Lurking beneath Laney's composed surface is the destructive impulse to follow in the footsteps of her father, to leave and topple her family's balance in the process.