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The Promise of a Normal Life: A Novel
For readers of Marilynne Robinson, Elizabeth Strout, and Katie Kitamura, the indelible journey of a quiet young woman—the “silent person” in the Seder—finding her way.
Hailed as “radiant and transporting” (Margot Livesey), The Promise of a Normal Life is a poet’s debut novel, so evocative of life as lived that it transports you to a time and place you can practically see, touch, and feel. The unnamed narrator is a fiercely observant, introverted Jewish-American girl who seems to exist in a private and separate realm. She's the child of a first-generation doctor and lawyer—whose own stories have the loud grandeur of family legend—in an America where Jews are excluded from the country club across the street. Her expectations for adulthood are often contradictory. In the changing landscape of the 1960s, she attempts to find her way through the rituals of life, her geography expanding across the country, across the ocean, and into multiple nations.
Along the way, she meets a glamorous hairdresser on a cruise ship to Israel, loopy tarot-card-reading passengers, and Alice-in-Wonderland lawyers in Haifa. There’s a blue-eyed all-American college boyfriend, a mystified tourist agent in the Lofoten Islands, a handsome eligible rabbi in LA, a righteous and self-absorbed MIT professor, and a clandestine, calculating lover in Boston. Eventually, she finds her own compass, but only after being swept to several distant shores by many winds.
Hailed as “radiant and transporting” (Margot Livesey), The Promise of a Normal Life is a poet’s debut novel, so evocative of life as lived that it transports you to a time and place you can practically see, touch, and feel. The unnamed narrator is a fiercely observant, introverted Jewish-American girl who seems to exist in a private and separate realm. She's the child of a first-generation doctor and lawyer—whose own stories have the loud grandeur of family legend—in an America where Jews are excluded from the country club across the street. Her expectations for adulthood are often contradictory. In the changing landscape of the 1960s, she attempts to find her way through the rituals of life, her geography expanding across the country, across the ocean, and into multiple nations.
Along the way, she meets a glamorous hairdresser on a cruise ship to Israel, loopy tarot-card-reading passengers, and Alice-in-Wonderland lawyers in Haifa. There’s a blue-eyed all-American college boyfriend, a mystified tourist agent in the Lofoten Islands, a handsome eligible rabbi in LA, a righteous and self-absorbed MIT professor, and a clandestine, calculating lover in Boston. Eventually, she finds her own compass, but only after being swept to several distant shores by many winds.
288 pages, Hardcover
Published February 7, 2023
12 people are currently reading
276 people want to read
About the author
Rebecca Kaiser Gibson
4 books9 followersRebecca Kaiser Gibson’s debut novel, The Promise of a Normal Life is forthcoming from Arcade Publishing, (2023). Her poetry collections are Girl as Birch, (2022), and OPINEL (2015) from Bauhan Publishing. Her work appears in Agni; Barrow Street, Field; Green Mountains Review; Greensboro Review; Interim, Harvard Review; Lammergeier; Massachusetts Review; Ocean State Review; Passengers; Salamander; Slate; Tupelo Quarterly; The Antigonish Review and VerseDaily among others. She’s received fellowships from MacDowell, the Massachusetts Cultural Council,Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and was a Fulbright Scholar teaching poetry in India. After teaching poetry at Tufts University for 23 years, she founded The Loom, Poetry in Harrisville, a poetry reading series. www.rebeccakaisergibson.com
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
January 21, 2023
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
I found this novel to be transportive but suffocating. The unnamed Jewish-American narrator is the child of a first-generation doctor and lawyer, questioning her place in her family and the world in the 1960s. Her mother is both cold and inattentive while simultaneously controlling. When meeting her future mother-in-law, she "was struck by how much Tom’s mother seemed to admire her son. I didn’t know how to understand a mother who made room for her child’s maturity." The Promise of a Normal Life takes place in a world of privilege but the narrator is unsure of every step. She drifts from her family home to her marital home in a haze, but like many women of her time, she can't quite put her finger on why she's unhappy or even decide what she wants. The author's poetry background shines through in this novel's writing.
I recommend this to someone looking for a quiet read, or as part of the publisher's summary suggests "for readers of Marilynne Robinson, Elizabeth Strout, and Katie Kitamura, the indelible journey of a quiet young woman—the 'silent person' in the Seder—finding her way."
Come chat with me about books here, too:
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I found this novel to be transportive but suffocating. The unnamed Jewish-American narrator is the child of a first-generation doctor and lawyer, questioning her place in her family and the world in the 1960s. Her mother is both cold and inattentive while simultaneously controlling. When meeting her future mother-in-law, she "was struck by how much Tom’s mother seemed to admire her son. I didn’t know how to understand a mother who made room for her child’s maturity." The Promise of a Normal Life takes place in a world of privilege but the narrator is unsure of every step. She drifts from her family home to her marital home in a haze, but like many women of her time, she can't quite put her finger on why she's unhappy or even decide what she wants. The author's poetry background shines through in this novel's writing.
I recommend this to someone looking for a quiet read, or as part of the publisher's summary suggests "for readers of Marilynne Robinson, Elizabeth Strout, and Katie Kitamura, the indelible journey of a quiet young woman—the 'silent person' in the Seder—finding her way."
Come chat with me about books here, too:
Blog | Instagram
February 21, 2023
rebecca kaiser gibson's debut novel, received as an earc
the writing in this was so real that i felt completely immersed in the story. even though the narrator remains unnamed, i felt like i knew her extremely well based on the glimpses from here and there from her life. these glimpses made me appreciate the narrator's development from childhood through to navigating her adulthood. i really liked scenes that included her mother polina, because they gave such a thorough look into the complexity of her character & their relationship. the novel felt poetic in a way, which must be due to the author's background as a poet.
the writing in this was so real that i felt completely immersed in the story. even though the narrator remains unnamed, i felt like i knew her extremely well based on the glimpses from here and there from her life. these glimpses made me appreciate the narrator's development from childhood through to navigating her adulthood. i really liked scenes that included her mother polina, because they gave such a thorough look into the complexity of her character & their relationship. the novel felt poetic in a way, which must be due to the author's background as a poet.
May 30, 2023
It felt like there was no plot. When the narrator would tell a story, they would leave out many details and the book never got deep.
April 5, 2024
Such beautifully confusing writing. I learned to take it sentence by sentence and really did enjoy it. I was never fully sucked in, though, and couldn’t easily visualize the contents. Maybe because it wasn’t relatable to me.
I’m glad I stuck with it. Thought-provoking Passover read.
I’m glad I stuck with it. Thought-provoking Passover read.
February 3, 2023
Coming of age stories from an American Jewish girl. I found the Passover chapter was particularly powerful, as well as the first chapter but… slowly lost interest. The first chapter about her trip to Israel was an incredible build up and yet, the chapter on Israel ends with her arrival. There isn’t one story about her summer there. There is barely any dialogue, so the narration feels like a memoir which is fine except when the main character is speaking somehow the voice doesn’t match. I don’t see the point of dividing the book into parts, years, and also chapters when the narrator going back and forth in time in almost every chapter by recalling memories. You can tell this it written by a poet but at this time I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
February 24, 2023
This is probably a 3.5 for me, to be honest, but I’m rounding up to 4 because the prose was so gorgeous I wish I could bottle it. This is a very quiet book, and a bit of a bummer. But so stunningly written.
March 20, 2023
Trite, boring, I did not care or connect with the characters.
March 19, 2023
Like living another life, at once both strange and familiar...
This novel, told through a series of first-person vignettes, is so rich in dreamy, sensory language that I lost myself, pulled effortlessly along by in the narrator’s off-kilter, no-filter point of view. In flashes back and forward from the late 50s and 80s, we zigzag from college trips abroad, to an insular childhood (complete with Elsie, the Black cook in the kitchen), to marriage with a tall Midwesterner with “eyes like blue crystal,” to an entangling lover’s triangle in Boston, and much more.
The book hovers in liminal spaces: a sultry Maryland between the North and South; the “otherness” of a quirkily observed Judaism; a solitary wandering through Norwegian tourist attractions (when her new husband retreats to a monastic fishing cottage); a California backyard where roses bloom year-round.
Looming throughout is the powerful presence of the narrator’s mother, Polina, who expands the novel’s scope back in time to the 1920s and who has the steely nerve and myopic, single-mindedness to have defied conventions to become a medical doctor in the 30s. From her daughter’s blinkered point of view, Polina’s overbearing and bossy self-regard is a cloying cloud of heavy perfume and Chesterfields, and trail of lipstick prints on cigarettes, glasses, and cocktail napkins.
The dawning of a new way of engaging with the world is both subtle and hopeful. We want to know what happens next.
This novel, told through a series of first-person vignettes, is so rich in dreamy, sensory language that I lost myself, pulled effortlessly along by in the narrator’s off-kilter, no-filter point of view. In flashes back and forward from the late 50s and 80s, we zigzag from college trips abroad, to an insular childhood (complete with Elsie, the Black cook in the kitchen), to marriage with a tall Midwesterner with “eyes like blue crystal,” to an entangling lover’s triangle in Boston, and much more.
The book hovers in liminal spaces: a sultry Maryland between the North and South; the “otherness” of a quirkily observed Judaism; a solitary wandering through Norwegian tourist attractions (when her new husband retreats to a monastic fishing cottage); a California backyard where roses bloom year-round.
Looming throughout is the powerful presence of the narrator’s mother, Polina, who expands the novel’s scope back in time to the 1920s and who has the steely nerve and myopic, single-mindedness to have defied conventions to become a medical doctor in the 30s. From her daughter’s blinkered point of view, Polina’s overbearing and bossy self-regard is a cloying cloud of heavy perfume and Chesterfields, and trail of lipstick prints on cigarettes, glasses, and cocktail napkins.
The dawning of a new way of engaging with the world is both subtle and hopeful. We want to know what happens next.
February 16, 2023
What happens to someone growing up with a temperament that’s intuitive, sensory-oriented, lyrical, almost mystical? In particular, how does she fare in an environment like post-World-War-II upper-middle-class America in which a conventional “normalcy” is assumed and the (glorious) facts of natural human diversity are overlooked? Rebecca Kaiser Gibson’s The Promise of a Normal Life raises these questions vividly and painfully. We follow her unnamed narrator from childhood toward midlife as she contends with a brittle, bruised mother, cultural and gender constraints, and a series of artfully drawn narcissistic men. With no help coming from others, she struggles even to articulate her own experience to herself. The wonder of Gibson’s novel is its subtlety: in sneaky ways, she leads the reader into the heart of the protagonist’s dissociation and confusion and then just leaves us there with her for long stretches. The result is a narrative that’s gripping and at times frightening, as we can’t be certain when or how or if the protagonist will recognize and exercise the agency and power she does possess. This book aches beautifully.
March 17, 2023
This books is a perfect gem. (Even the size, color and weight of the hard copy feels like a gold coin or a satisfying stone in your hand.)
I admire so many things. First, the sentences are beautifully crafted, with striking, cinematic moments in many of them. Second, the entire frame through which we experience the story is intriguing; a bit mysterious and absolutely suited to the plot.
We view the world through the eyes of a passive young woman who slowly grows into a person with agency, intuition, and courage. We never learn her name, and she is telling a story in the past. The scenes jump backwards and forwards in time, just as memory does. The present moment in time is imbued with color, music, and the narrator's own hyper-focus (thank you, beautiful writing).
The result is that we are hemmed in by her limitations; we expand when she expands. This process felt like a wonderful unfolding for me, as the reader. I highly recommend this novel for anyone interested in strong women and how they emerge. And anyone interested in narrative voice, the diverse ways it can be constructed. But mostly, read it for fun, and the pull of Gibson's sentences.
I admire so many things. First, the sentences are beautifully crafted, with striking, cinematic moments in many of them. Second, the entire frame through which we experience the story is intriguing; a bit mysterious and absolutely suited to the plot.
We view the world through the eyes of a passive young woman who slowly grows into a person with agency, intuition, and courage. We never learn her name, and she is telling a story in the past. The scenes jump backwards and forwards in time, just as memory does. The present moment in time is imbued with color, music, and the narrator's own hyper-focus (thank you, beautiful writing).
The result is that we are hemmed in by her limitations; we expand when she expands. This process felt like a wonderful unfolding for me, as the reader. I highly recommend this novel for anyone interested in strong women and how they emerge. And anyone interested in narrative voice, the diverse ways it can be constructed. But mostly, read it for fun, and the pull of Gibson's sentences.
March 5, 2023
The unnamed narrator of this novel is a lost woman. In many ways we are all lost, all searching for a norm that doesn't exist. This character is trying, faltering, becoming and becoming. She doesn't know how to "fit in." At times, she is irritating. Yet, the appealing thing about her is that she keeps struggling.
That she is Jewish is central to this story. That her parents are first generation is also central. This book is set in the 50's and 60's when men controlled women's lives; yet, the protagonist's mother is a successful professional as is her father. Both are emotionally absent. She has let both define her, so this is a journey toward the self. Sometimes, I wanted to shake her, but she, like each of us, had to find her own way.
Rebecca Kaiser Gibson is a poet and her prose is luminous. I savored every word.
That she is Jewish is central to this story. That her parents are first generation is also central. This book is set in the 50's and 60's when men controlled women's lives; yet, the protagonist's mother is a successful professional as is her father. Both are emotionally absent. She has let both define her, so this is a journey toward the self. Sometimes, I wanted to shake her, but she, like each of us, had to find her own way.
Rebecca Kaiser Gibson is a poet and her prose is luminous. I savored every word.
June 4, 2023
When I started this book I thought I knew what I was getting into. A coming of age story. Girl growing up finding herself. Little did I know I would be reading so much that related to my generation. Not that it was my story per se, but it was the story of the life around me - some things I experienced completely, some things my close friends experienced. But the main thing I found was how so many women of my generation didn’t talk about our experiences until much later. The girl, later women, at the heart of this story didn’t talk to anyone about what she was experiences. Sometimes, most often time, she didn’t ponder them to herself until much later. Rebecca Kaiser Gibson has definitely captured the essence of girls growing up in the 50s and 60s in a way that we can really feel it and reflect upon it.
January 30, 2023
I was given a copy of this from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.
Does no one write books with narratives anymore? The last three books I've read have all been some sort of choppy-changey story things. This literally calls itself a novel on the front cover, but is actually a series of vignettes. Maybe they all add up to our main characters life? Maybe this is not about our unnamed main character, but about her mother? I don't know, but this flips from incident to incident, while our main character is so passive I would describe her as floppy. Just like real life, it doesn't add up to much and is not really that interesting, although it is so close to being a beautifully written interesting story it just sort of trails about and then finishes.
Does no one write books with narratives anymore? The last three books I've read have all been some sort of choppy-changey story things. This literally calls itself a novel on the front cover, but is actually a series of vignettes. Maybe they all add up to our main characters life? Maybe this is not about our unnamed main character, but about her mother? I don't know, but this flips from incident to incident, while our main character is so passive I would describe her as floppy. Just like real life, it doesn't add up to much and is not really that interesting, although it is so close to being a beautifully written interesting story it just sort of trails about and then finishes.
March 15, 2023
Loved the cover of this book and the name of it as well. I felt like this book was beautiful, and you have to read between the lines to find the beauty in this book.
What did I get from this book?
The woman has no name, and she is lost. I felt it was written in this format so we could think of ourselves? Our own life? How often do women struggle to fit in at work, school, gym, or social media? We are all lost trying to live a normal life... She goes thru the motions of finding her self, and it is a beautiful journey.
Beautifully written.
What did I get from this book?
The woman has no name, and she is lost. I felt it was written in this format so we could think of ourselves? Our own life? How often do women struggle to fit in at work, school, gym, or social media? We are all lost trying to live a normal life... She goes thru the motions of finding her self, and it is a beautiful journey.
Beautifully written.
June 10, 2023
I enjoyed this. The writing is spare but lyrical. There are lots of vivid sensuous details and the characters are drawn with keen observation. The author creates an unforgettable picture of the the narrator’s husband, Tom. He’s rigid and stifling, and he makes the narrator doubt what she sees—he gaslights her, and it’s horribly convincing. The scenes with her parents are great. Her father is tender but ineffectual and her mother is fascinating but overpowering. I liked the structure of the book too; it’s like a loose mosaic.
Catherine
Catherine
May 19, 2023
I really enjoyed this book! I often only get the chance to read before I got to bed so one of the things I loved about the book was its short chapters. I didn’t have to keep re-reading what I had read the night before to remember what had happened in the story! The characters were interesting and it was so fun to picture the narrator throughout her life. I felt like I was on the journey with her!
October 24, 2023
This debut novel finds a young Jewish-American woman trying to find her way in 1960s America and Israel. It is a quiet story and the author’s skill as a poet are clear in the lyrical writing. The unnamed narrator describes her slow awakening through a series of vignettes that bounce around in time. From a mismatch of a marriage and other romantic relationship problems, through her struggles with an emotionally distant but domineering mother, the narrator finally comes into her own in the end.
July 5, 2025
A must-read stirring and nostalgic book for women of all ages. "The Promise of a Normal Life" was a vivid connection to my past and the discovery that I had a voice. It is a tender read of difficult life lessons. Ms. Gibson has a writing style that felt like we were having a conversation, and she was directly talking to me. A gem of a book that I am already sharing with friends.
January 31, 2023
I was immediately drawn in to the story from the first scene the authors writing is so vivid her characters come to life.I will be recommending thisbook and looking forward to more from the author.Her writing is lyrical and the fact that she’s a poet shows in her language.#netgalley #skyhorsebooks
March 14, 2023
I enjoyed reading this book. I found myself wondering and pondering what the narrator would do next, what transition she would take in her life. I found it easy to relate to as we all are searching at some point in our lives to find the life we are intended to have and to discover our voices.
May 1, 2023
Not sure the poetry to novel concept works well. It was hard to care about the narrator and her disparate experiences, especially since she seemed to exercise hardly any agency. It felt unmoored and drifting, and almost more theoretical than real.
December 18, 2024
The short clips, especially in the childhood portions, made this feel very memoir-esque and I couldn’t shake that feeling for most of the book. However the second half does have more of a propelling plot. I wished our narrator had more agency but overall I enjoyed the lyrical language.
March 18, 2023
Minuteman. Decided not to read--Too poetic for bedtime.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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March 26, 2023A novel that reads in many ways like a memoiristic journal--it's highly episodic, and we're deeply immersed in the first-person narrator's perspective throughout.
June 27, 2023
Reads like a classic novel, but it is evident that the author is more of a poet than a novelist. Sometimes directionless wandering is exactly what you need though.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews