Edie Richter Is Not Alone

by Rebecca Handler

Funny, acerbic Edie Richter is moving with her husband from San Francisco to Perth, Australia. She leaves behind a sister and mother still mourning the recent death of her father. Before the move, Edie and her husband were content, if socially awkward―given her disinclination for small talk.

In Perth, Edie finds herself in a remarkably isolated yet verdant corner of the world, but Edie has a secret: she committed an unthinkable act that she can barely admit to herself. In some ways, the landscape mirrors her own complicated inner life, and rather than escaping her past, Edie is increasingly forced to confront what she's done. Everybody, from the wildlife to her new neighbors, is keen to engage, and Edie does her best to start fresh. But her relationship with her husband is fraying, and the beautiful memories of her father are heartbreaking, and impossible to stop. Something, in the end, has to give.

Written in clean spare prose that is nevertheless brimming with the richness and wry humor of the protagonist's observations and idiosyncrasies, Edie Richter is Not Alone is Rebecca Handler’s debut novel. It is both deeply shocking and entirely quotidian: a story about a woman's visceral confrontation with the fundamental meaning of humanity.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Adult, Audiobook, Australia, Literary Fiction, Family

192 pages, Hardcover

First published March 9, 2021

Reviews

[Shireen Karimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will haunt me for a while; maybe forever and not in a bad way. Edie Richter is complex and I think that is true of every human. I loved that this book took the time to explore such a character and such a story-- one that at times I loved, at times I could relate to, at times made me laugh, and at times made me incredibly uncomfortble. For me, these are the stories that stick; the ones that aren't so afraid of crossing a line or testing the boundaries. I read this book in two sittings and I think that speaks to how well it was written, at this moment, I don't have a single critique.

[Marcy Dermansky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in a day. It was so well observed, so well written, so incredibly engaging, that somehow I didn't realize until the very end how incredibly sad it was. And that's okay. I love sad. Edie Richter Is Not Alone is a beautiful book.

[Kaeleigh Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute mindfuck - in the same way that grieving the death of a parent is confusing and complicated and layered, especially a parent who loses their mind as they die. I like that none of the things that are supposed to help Edie actually help. I think that is how it usually goes. I wish I had had a dead possum.

[Laura (thenerdygnomelife) · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a strange collection of feelings this book leaves me with, from sinking into the story of Edie, a young woman who moves from California to Australia with her husband following the death of her father. Carrying the weight of her grief and her own unthinkable secret, Edie increasingly spirals out of balance and into isolation.

With just 192 pages, Rebecca Handler achieves impressive character development for its length. This is a strong portrait of a broken woman, and of the complex gray areas of family relations. Trigger warning: you may find this difficult to read if you’ve lost someone to dementia.

As a side note, I stumbled a bit with the audiobook narration performed by Megan Smart. This was not the first audiobook I've listened to that was narrated by Smart, but it was the first time that her unusual pronunciation of some words stood out to me, momentarily taking me out of the story flow on multiple occasions.

[Jodi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing novel. Hilariously funny, but poignant and thoughtful in its references to Alzheimer's. This book was an absolute GEM!! Very highly recommended.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Edie and I loved the first half. It did lose steam in the second half and I also thought the metaphors got a bit too obvious. The father-daughter relationship at the heart really really worked for me though.

[Cee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this was a rather pretty book, but I suppose between the title and the description I expected a little bit more character to come from it. Rather, I guess I expected character development, which does not happen. I understand how some relate to the protagonist and find this book very special but upon realizing that nothing was going to change, I felt a bit betrayed. Why do I care then?

The prose of this story is beautiful, it's lyricism is stand-out and it really makes the character's voice pop. I just wish that there was more character behind that voice than the depressed (understandably) and emotionally constipated woman that we did wind up getting. People said they found the book funny, I just found it sad- sad how the protagonist lashes out, sad how people hurt others without realizing, sad about the circumstances people can find themselves due to nothing but Nature. Some call Edie quirky, I call her mentally ill and in desperate need of a therapist.

[Jennifer K · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t love this book. I didn’t hate it either. But a lot of it just felt like white noise to me (although one could argue that is how life is sometimes, too). I didn’t know much about this book when I picked it up to read it. From the blurb, I thought it would be more of a mystery. Instead, it was more of a fictional memoir of a woman going through a rough time (I won’t put spoilers). I did enjoy how there were no quotation marks in the book when characters were speaking- somehow it felt like a representation of her depression. Overall, this one fell flat for me.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know how to rate this one. I loved it. I hated it. I made me crazy, it made me sad. I just know I'll think about it for a while.

[N · Rating 1 out of 5]

Edie was just so unlikeable.

Glad it was a short read

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edie Richter is living in Boston with her husband, Oren, when her father is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Edie and Oren uproot their lives to move to San Francisco where she can be closer to her family, and she suffers considerable emotional strain as her father slowly loses his physical and mental faculties. “I knew Dad would stop recognizing me. I didn’t know I would stop recognizing him,” she confesses.

After watching his steady decline for months, Edie puts a t-shirt over her father’s mouth and suffocates him.

You can read my full review HERE on BookBrowse, and you can read a piece I wrote about Perth HERE.

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

2021 Book Review 12: Edie Richter Is Not Alone

Edie Richter Is Not Alone is the debut novel by Rebecca Handler. Edie is a fresh transplant to Australia from California, along for the ride with her husband’s job transfer. Working remotely while working through her father’s death, Edie isn’t exactly blooming where she is planted. This novel releases on March 9th, 2021 but *spoiler alert* call your local bookstore and get your pre-order in now because I am OBSESSED.

Edie is one of these perfect rare protagonists that I really truly feel I relate to. If you had the good sense to read Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss, if you loved Lillian in Kevin Wilson’s Nothing To See Here, or if you fell right into the world of Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz (@deezybotpress), you’ll want to read about Edie Richter. Edie and her college sweetheart husband Oren move cross-country back to her home in California after her father’s early Alzheimer’s diagnosis. After his death, she pushes to move forward with Oren’s job promotion - maybe the move to Perth, Australia will do her some good.

Okay, Rebecca Handler, where did you COME from? Edie’s narrative is unlike anything I’ve read before. Handler’s writing is sparse yet reads in this deliciously rambling train-of-thought way, it’s witty and snappy yet nothing short of beautiful. We bounce between past and present, between conversations and actions and random thoughts. I laughed often, but more than once (way more than once) I found myself wiping tears away so I could see before I realized I was crying. I can’t get over this book. I’ve been due for a new “this is my favorite book” for a really long time, and this is a hell of a contender.

ABSOLUTELY 5/5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Sidnie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I expected at all, and that was honestly somewhat refreshing. The summary, to me, painted much more of a lighthearted book, even if the subject matter is grim. I thought this would be more of a story about a secret, death and dying, and some sort of closure. I like that it wasn't quite that neat, but it was actually quite dark. Again, I respect this, given the subject matter. The protagonist is not some sort of quirky heroine navigating a parent's death but ultimately feeling redeemed, this is really about a trauma and a person in pain. While very well-written, it was a little too stark for me, overall, though i appreciated what I viewed as a more honest perspective.

[Allison]

Reminiscent of Jenny Offill's "Weather" in narrative style. Moves from memory to present day action to contemplation to random fact and back to memory again, providing us with thoughtful meditations on identity, death, family relationships, marriage and trust. A strange and beautiful book.

Many thanks to #Edelweiss for an advance copy of this title.

[Tina Panik · Rating 2 out of 5]

This domestic story fails at differentiating itself from the Eleanor Olipnant’s, Ove’s, and Christopher Boone’s* already on the shelves. Edie is callous, selfish, and unlikeable.

*Man Called Over and the Curious Incident of the Dog in Nighttime, respectively.

[Cassie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intense, honest and brilliant. It hits close to the bone for anyone with a parent who's losing cognitive function and grieving.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

“She was scatterbrained and always looked like she fell out of a ceiling fan”

[Rachael Oglesby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Between Goodbye Vitamin and Dolly Alderton's Ghosts, among others, the topic of losing fathers to dementia has become oddly frequent in my reads. But Edie Richter stands out in a way I can't quite put my finger on just yet. It is shocking and emotional and complicated. Edie is chaotic in her grief and often unapologetically terse and awful to those who love her, yet her pain is palpable. She is, arguably, an antiheroine, yet you root for her anyway. Rebecca Handler's writing is quiet, beautiful, and easily digested even through moments of discomfort; it wrestles with the greater themes of humanity and guilt and loss as it walks us through the humdrum day-to-day activities of Edie's life.

[Ana Pau Carbonell · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5* I think?

This book made me cry because I am very close to my dad and I also lost my grandfather to Alzheimer's. It is a very sincere exploration of grief, of losing a loved one to a mental illness. It's painful, and one starts to wonder when is it that they are fully gone. Who are we? Are we our memories? Are we still ourselves, even if we can't remember those we love?

It began to lose me a little bit at the end but I still very much enjoyed the ride.

[Audrey A · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was CRAZY Im freaking out. A lot like Hot Milk if all the characters were completely unlikable.

[Patti · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story pulled me along and I found the characters and plot elements interesting.
I should have liked it more because it was so realistic.
Maybe it would have helped if Edie was a likeable character, but she was not.
Not all protagonists have to be sympathetic.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would be a good book to discuss with someone else because I really wondered many times, "WTF is wrong with Edie Richter?" I'm not sure it was grief or insanity at times. I think this novel is an interesting character study of a woman who is difficult to like.

[Jacqueline Knirnschild · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is the belief that a person needs to have hit rock bottom in order to recover, but only a talented author, like Rebecca Handler, can show us what that looks like in gritty, realistic and darkly hilarious detail. Edie Richter is Not Alone is about a woman struggling to admit a horrible act that she has committed, and like Leslie Jamison’s recovery from alcoholism, Edie only moves towards a place of recovery by forgetting herself and engaging with strangers — observing them, chit-chatting with them and absorbing the plentitude of her surroundings, which often results in some interesting, comical and chaotic predicaments. In Handler’s own words, Edie Richter is Not Alone is a novel about a woman making “a mess of things before straightening them out.”

Edie Richter is in her late thirties, living in Boston with her husband of ten years, when her father is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She quits her job at an anti-hunger organization and the couple moves to San Francisco to be closer to her father. After her father’s death, Edie’s husband, Oren, is offered a job in one of the most isolated cities in the world: Perth, Western Australia. They move across the globe, all the while Edie holds onto a secret that is isolating her from her husband just like the great outback separates Perth from the rest of the country. The secret is “an unthinkable act that she can barely admit to herself” — as reads the blurb on the outside of the book.

See the rest of my review at Full-Stop:

https://www.full-stop.net/2021/09/13/...

[Hannah Gulle-Grogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up at a shop because of its similarity to Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (a favorite of mine). Because of this comparison, I had high hopes for this story, and it held up to them!

Despite the "disjointed" nature of small stories and memories coming together, RH's writing has a smooth, syntactical rhythm. For a relatively short novel, she crafts a rich universe and an immersive story.

I will absolutely read this again.

[Sherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an astonishing meditation on guilt and how it eats away at one’s soul, unraveling a life. Incredibly deft writing from a brand new author. But the ending seemed a bit rushed and didn’t do justice to the story. Maybe it’s too early to draw conclusions about small, independent publishers, but I’m starting to see a pattern here: fantastic/promising writing, but unsatisfying resolution (3 of 4 books have suffered the same fate). Still, I’ll read on!

Revised my rating after rereading the prologue and the epilogue and hearing from the author who clearly gave this all so much thought! It’s actually almost a perfect read. And I’m still thinking about it several days on...

[Gabby C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this whole thing in two hours or so, which has to count for something. I loved the subtle pop culture references to books, songs, etc that are not named but described enough that certain readers will just get it. I’m not really sure what to make of the prologue and epilogue.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title and the cover are cutesy and I was dreading that the book might also be that way but wow, the writing here is incredible. So much said and unsaid.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I loved every book I read as much as this one!

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

good god this woman was insane. also second book in a row about jewish australians? interesting niche on my part

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice writing in this novella-length story of a young woman who hastens the death of her father who’s suffering from Alzheimer’s, but I wanted more insights into her state of mind.