How Not to Drown

Praise

Praise for How Not to Drown:
INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS WINNER: GENERAL FICTION
NYC BIG BOOK AWARD WINNER: GENERAL FICTION

“A poignant portrait of a family struggling to cope with tragedy.”
—Library Journal

“Wriston is utterly entrancing in her fourth novel, imaginatively exploring regrets, grief, obsessions, and love with fluent empathy and mordant humor. Improvising on her haunting signature themes—family conflicts, resilient young women, brokenness, the sea, and mystical beings—Wriston offers a complexly evocative, bittersweet, and richly involving tale.”
—Donna Seaman, Booklist

“Both a deeply reflective and highly entertaining read . . . How Not to Drown is one of the most compelling reading experiences I have had over this difficult year.”
—North American Review

“[This] lush new novel, drenched in folklore, is a glorious web of family connections and missed connections. This brilliant book will revive you!”
—Bonnie Jo Campbell, National Book Award Finalist, American Salvage

“Funny and heart-wrenching, caustic and emotional, and serious and uplifting. This is the perfect spring read!”
—Elyssa Friedland, acclaimed author of The Floating Feldmans

“A mesmerizing, heart-stopping story of a family mired in grief and a deep history of loss, How Not to Drown is a radiant lesson in the double necessities of mourning and survival.” 
—Minrose Gwin, award-winning author of The Accidentals

“An unforgettable balancing act, at once visceral and thoughtful, raw yet sensitive, sometimes painfully humorous, complex but basic, though never simple.”
 —James Anderson, award-winning author The Never-Open Desert Diner and Lullaby Road

“A fierce—and fiercely funny—family epic, one of those rare books that is both smart and entertaining. If you liked Olive Kitteridge, you’ll love Amelia MacQueen.”
—Alexi Zentner, author of Copperhead

Praise for Jaimee Wriston Colbert:
Winner, Willa Cather Fiction Prize

“Eerie, understated, and deft.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Impressive…The stories stand on their own as sensitive and unsentimental evocations of unrelieved loss.”
—New York Times Book Review, on Climbing the God Tree

“[Wriston] looks deeply into the ragged places in our psyches…and reveals our humanity in all its beauty and imperfection.”
 —Dawn Raffel, Judge, Willa Cather Fiction Prize

“[Wriston’s] fierce intelligence is at work in every sentence.”
—Lee Upton, author of Visitations

“Extraordinarily incisive, stirring, funny, and haunting all-American stories.” 
—Booklist, on Wild Things

“These brilliant, surprising stories defy gravity and take flight.” 
—Bonnie Jo Campbell, National Book Award Finalist, on Wild Things

“An original collection of stories that captures the essence of what it is to be human.” 
—American Book Review, on Wild Things