Praise for Every Kind of Wanting
Finalist for the 2016 Chicago Review of Books Award
"Urgent and stirring." —Laila Lalami, Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Moor’s Account
"A darkly funny tale." —Marie Claire
"Powerful, provocative, multilayered...As in Gina Frangello's entire body of work, the nefarious, neurotic and quintessentially human qualities of her characters compel the reader to relate to them and root for them, despite or because of the sexy, scintillating messes they make of their lives." —Chicago Tribune
"The families in Frangello’s latest novel are truly in a category all their own...behind all the potential melodrama is a story that takes a serious look at race, class, sexuality, and loyalty — in short, at the new American family." —The Millions, Great Anticipated Book List of 2016
"Frangello’s characters are flawed but sympathetic, and she brings up important points about race, class and sexuality. Read this if you’ve ever wondered how you’d fare in such a situation—or if you’re just deeply curious about how such nontraditional pregnancies might play out in the real world." —PureWow, 10 Best Books to Read This Fall
"Every Kind of Wanting deals with the kind of trauma that cracks you open over time...Frangello...is a sculptor who has carved out the truest and most intimate parts of a human life. The root of the novel is about lives being upended." —Chicago Review of Books, 10 Best Books to Read This September
"Every Kind of Wanting is grand in scope but intimate in detail. Like Love Actually, people cheat on each other, harbor secret loves, resent members of their own family, and confront the worst parts of themselves. Just don’t expect a happy ending in the London airport." —Chicago magazine, The Year’s Best Books About Chicago, by Chicagoans
"Every Kind of Wanting is a powder–keg disguised as a domestic drama that detonates every one of out expectations of what it means to be a family." —San Diego CityBeat
"No one breathes complexity and compassion into their characters quite like Gina Frangello, and her latest novel, Every Kind Of Wanting, features another stellar ensemble." —Coast Magazine
"Frangello is an author who pushes boundaries...[T]he story fascinates and never falters. Frangello takes on an enthralling range of issues, from sexuality to assimilation, and keeping secrets is her greatest talent. Every page brings a new revelation, making the bitter end even sweeter." —The Globe and Mail
"[Frangello] has subverted the old–fashioned suburban narrative, and filled it with a constellation of quirky characters...Frangello threads conflicts over ethnicity, class, and sexuality into the novel, and injects a smart topicality that gives it special resonance."—National Book Review
"A twisted novel of family...which poses big questions about love, fidelity, and parenthood...Fans of Frangello's work will enjoy this intricate portrait of the connections between an immigrant Latino family and moneyed North Shore magnates."—Kirkus
"It's the balance between interior and exterior, tidiness and chaos, that makes Every Kind of Wanting so winsome. The reader sees the imperfections of these collective lives like a great tableau, as rich and human as a hand–hewn tapestry." —Shelf Awareness
"[A] poised and intuitive handling of the complexities of damaged and fragmented families." —Booklist
"Funny and also dark, with likable characters, Frangello’s novel is recommended for fans of witty fiction such as titles by Curtis Sittenfeld." —Library Journal
"Every Kind of Wanting is not only a study in great character development, it is a consummate,emotionally sophisticated, and fiercely readable survey of the yearnings that shape our lives. Frangello is a writer’s writer, and Every Kind of Wanting finds her at the top of her game." —Jonathan Evison, bestselling author of The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving
"A brilliant fusion of deep secrets, stunning lies, the murky past and the uncertain future, all couched around the very human cost of desire. So fearless and ambitious, the pages practically ignite." —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow and Pictures of You
"Desire is at the heart of Frangello's work, and whether we can survive it is central to this raw, wonderful, and unmistakably contemporary novel. This is the future that our conservative forebears were scared of, in all its messy, hopeful glory." —J. Ryan Stradal, New York Times bestselling author of Kitchen of the Great Midwest
"Frangello unspools an exquisitely layered story about desire that takes us to astonishing heights and necessary depths. In a novel that is sensual, shocking, and wise, she delivers truth after truth about lust—whether for a lover, for a baby, for (in)fidelity, for hidden meaning, or, as she so powerfully redefines it, for love." —Dylan Landis, author of Rainey Royal
"This is a novel about how we matter to each other, and why, and to what end. It is a labyrinthine story, complex, recursive, and crafted around the unflinchingly intimate honestly that marks everything Gina Frangello writes. What a brutal book. What a beautiful book." —Jill Alexander Essbaum, New York Times bestselling author of Hausfrau
"Gina Frangello’s gifts are countless...Every Kind of Wanting is a tour de force, and Gina Frangello is a genius. Read this to discover her, but better yet: read it to discover your own heart." —Rebecca Makkai, author of The Hundred Year House
"Every Kind of Wanting left me breathless in the best way...like bodies love–wrestling, like language's sweet sweat and suction. I'd follow her words anywhere." —Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Small Backs of Children
"Frangello masterfully captures the craziness of everyday life: messy and complicated and still, always, worth living. Every Kind of Wanting is a wonder." —Marcy Dermansky, author of The Red Car and Bad Marie
"No one, NO ONE, captures the urgency and heartbreak of the contemporary family, in all its complexity, better than Gina Frangello. Gorgeously written, sharply observed, Every Kind of Wanting is the literary equivalent of a hand grenade. I loved it."—Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year
"Gina Frangello is a miracle worker. She keeps introducing me to characters who I initially have every intention of hating, but then, miraculously, come to love. In this gorgeous, complex, funny, sexy, and thoroughly modern story, she unpacks the origins of selfishness with unparalleled honesty and compassion. I couldn't put this down." —Sarah Hollenback, Women & Children First
07/18/2016
The plot of Frangello’s (A Life in Men) latest sounds like it comes out of a feel-good Garry Marshall movie: Chad and Miguel, a wealthy gay couple in Chicago, set out to have a baby with the help of Chad’s sister, Gretchen, and Miguel’s old college friend Emily, in what Miguel’s unstable, bipolar sister, Lina, who narrates much of the novel, dubs the “Community Baby Plan.” But Frangello’s uneven, though sometimes illuminating novel has a darker story to tell, one about how this “tangled knot of people,” which also includes various spouses, siblings, and damaged children, gives way to “jealousy, entitlement, possession.” As the baby plan goes awry, in ways both comically minor and heartbreakingly major, spouses begin to cheat and most of those involved start to realize that they’re deluding themselves about their motivations. Frangello shifts the balance of the novel out of whack with her fond focus on Lina, whose most outwardly despicable acts Frangello forgives far more readily than those of the other characters. As Frangello twists the plot and adds unnecessary new strands, including the backstory of Lina and Miguel’s childhood in Colombia, what begins as a comedy of manners turns into an overly soapy melodrama. (Sept.)
09/01/2016
Frangello (A Life in Men) shows readers how complicated it can get when one wants a baby. Chad and his partner Miguel have asked Chad's sister Gretchen to donate her eggs so they can try to start a family. Fortysomething Gretchen is unhappily married to Troy; they have a young boy named Gray. Chad and Miguel still need a surrogate for the baby. They run into Emily, an old high school friend of Miguel's who offers to be their surrogate. She is married to Nick, a playwright/actor, and they have two kids. Also involved in this complicated situation is Lina, Miguel's troubled sister, who begins an affair with Nick after appearing in his play. Much of the book revolves around struggles in the characters' relationships with one another and the secrets that could tear them apart. VERDICT Funny and also dark, with likable characters, Frangello's novel is recommended for fans of witty fiction such as titles by Curtis Sittenfeld.—Holly Skir, York Coll., CUNY
2016-06-21
A twisted novel of family—the kinds we're stuck with and the kinds we make—which poses big questions about love, fidelity, and parenthood.Told in the voices of four characters involved in an ambitious fertility scheme, Frangello's (A Life in Men, 2014, etc.) novel catalogs the interconnected lives and marriages of four Chicago couples. There's Lina, a former stripper contemplating leaving her longtime lover, Bebe—an academic "femi-nazi" and dom—for a wastrel playwright. Her brother, Miguel, is haunted by their abusive childhood in Caracas and afraid of failing at fatherhood despite the support of his well-to-do husband, Chad. Before long, the Guerra siblings become drawn into the world of white privilege exemplified by Chad's WASPy, upper-crust family, including his vulnerable sister, Gretchen. When Gretchen agrees to donate her eggs to Chad and Miguel so they can raise a longed-for baby, she unwittingly sets off a chain of events that will detonate crisis after family crisis. Poor Gretchen is gaslit by her grasping and abusive husband, Troy, all the while distrusting the intentions of Chad and Miguel's surrogate, Emily, a high school friend of Miguel's whose home life is crumbling around her. As the characters reveal where their true loyalties lie—with their spouses or lovers, the families they have or the ones they long for—Frangello's novel begins to fray at the seams of her ambitious plot. With a surfeit of melodrama, it can be hard to discern where the emotional center of Frangello's narratives lies. The complicated viper's nest of the "community baby" receives the bulk of her attention, while glimpses into the Guerras' painful family secrets offer the possibility of greater depth. Still, this novel boldly attempts to address the intricacies of immigration, race, class, and sexuality that shape the contemporary American family—even if the plot raises more questions than it answers. Fans of Frangello's work will enjoy this intricate portrait of the connections between an immigrant Latino family and moneyed North Shore magnates.
