Narrator Marin Ireland expertly shares the story of two couples through the ups and downs of their complex, long-standing friendship. The Good Company of the title is a theater group that three of the four friends were active in. It could also refer to the value of long-term, intertwined relationships as their dynamics shift. Ireland serves as a sympathetic narrator and supplies unique voices to bring the characters to life. Julian, one of the founders of The Good Company, has the strong voice of a leader. His wife, Flora, displays a wide range of emotions while navigating her roles as wife, mother, and friend. Daughter Ruby and best friend Margot are also given voices to highlight the layers of their relationships. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Good Company: A Novel
Narrated by Marin Ireland
Cynthia D'Aprix SweeneyUnabridged — 8 hours, 59 minutes
Good Company: A Novel
Narrated by Marin Ireland
Cynthia D'Aprix SweeneyUnabridged — 8 hours, 59 minutes
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Overview
""Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney plumbs the depths of marriage, motherhood and friendship with warmth and wit. I devoured it in one gulp! Treat yourself to some Good Company."" -Maria Semple, author of Today Will Be Different
A warm, incisive new novel about the enduring bonds of marriage and friendship from Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author of the instant New York Times bestseller The Nest
Flora Mancini has been happily married for more than twenty years. But everything she thought she knew about herself, her marriage, and her relationship with her best friend, Margot, is upended when she stumbles upon an envelope containing her husband's wedding ring-the one he claimed he lost one summer when their daughter, Ruby, was five.
Flora and Julian struggled for years, scraping together just enough acting work to raise Ruby in Manhattan and keep Julian's small theater company-Good Company-afloat. A move to Los Angeles brought their first real career successes, a chance to breathe easier, and a reunion with Margot, now a bona fide television star. But has their new life been built on lies? What happened that summer all those years ago? And what happens now?
With Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's signature tenderness, humor, and insight, Good Company tells a bighearted story of the lifelong relationships that both wound and heal us.
Editorial Reviews
03/15/2021
Sweeney’s disappointing latest (after The Nest) revolves around two New York City theater transplants and their daughter and friends in Los Angeles. When musical theater–turned–voiceover actor Flora Mancini discovers her husband Julian Fletcher’s wedding ring in their garage, she suspects something is awry: he had told her he lost it swimming in a pond. A meandering set of backstories and present-day happenings ensues, involving the couple’s 18-year-old daughter, Ruby, and their best friends: Margot Letta, an actor on a television drama, and her husband, David Pearlman, a former cardiac surgeon whose practice was upended when he had a stroke. In chapters alternating between the characters’ points of view, Sweeney unravels the love, pain, and disappointment between them as Flora seeks to discover why Julian lied about the wedding ring, Margot’s TV role comes to a close and she reckons with her part in the ring mystery, and Ruby travels to Spain with a boyfriend before starting college. While the deliciously flawed characters are well developed, the lackluster climax and drawn-out therapy scenes involving Flora and Julian are less successful. In the end, readers will long for more drama in a story of people whose lives are steeped in it. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency. (May)
[T]errific wit and inventiveness…Now that’s entertainment.” — Wall Street Journal
"Sweeney’s effectiveness as a novelist stems from her protean sympathy, her ability to move among these characters and capture each one’s feelings without judgment. As we see some of the same events from various points of view, we don’t learn who was right — who could ever be right, after all? — but we get a poignant, sometimes comic sense of the way we each experience the same events, the same decisions, the same mistakes. In Sweeney’s hands, that’s not a recipe for endless conflict, but a road to understanding and — maybe — forgiveness." — Washington Post
“Sweeney’s warm, witty novel plumbs the depths of two marriages. Secrets and resentments abound, but loyalty and abiding affection carry this bicoastal tale of actors finding their way in real life.” — New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice
“In Good Company, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s follow-up to her best-selling ‘The Nest,’ she deftly and empathetically charts the nuanced rhythms of friendships, particularly those that, under certain circumstances, take on the role of a close-knit family circle.” — Boston Globe
“The vivacious and tender second novel by the bestselling author of The Nest is an absorbing, wise, and tender tale of a marriage in mid-life.” — O, the Oprah Magazine
“Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s Good Company is a smart and nuanced examination of the growing pains of long relationships, sure to spark great conversations about marriage, friendship, and parenthood." — Real Simple
“This novel considers how much the bonds of friendship and marriage can withstand in a tale that has as much heart as it does intrigue." — Good Housekeeping
“You don't need to be a fan of Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's bestseller The Nest to appreciate the high stakes, sly class commentary, and masterful storytelling of Good Company—but it wouldn't hurt. — Town & Country
“[T]ender and absorbing tale….Filled with humor and insight, Good Company is a warm and incisive novel about loyalty and the bonds of marriage and friendship.” — BookRiot
"This effervescent, tender second novel by the bestselling author of The Nest is an enthralling saga of a marriage in midlife and the secrets that threaten to upend it." — Oprah Daily
“[P]ropulsive, character-steeped story of two best friends.” — Vanity Fair
“If I could "go long" on a book the way it works with stocks, I would "go long" on Good Company. (Book Stock Exchange, anyone?) This will absolutely hit the lists due to its combination of approachable, skilled prose from the author of bestseller "The Nest," the fantastic characters, and the universally shared desire to figure out who we really are.” — Zibby Owens, GMA.com
"There are few writers who explore the depths of family and friendship with as much care and nuance as Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, whose new novel is a generous, empathetic portrayal of a marriage and friendship thrown into disarray by an accidental discovery. . . . D'Aprix Sweeney interrogates all that goes into building a life together — the messiness, the heartache, and the joy." — Refinery 29
“[Sweeney’s] warmth and wit refresh a tale as old as time.” — Entertainment Weekly
“From the bestselling author of The Nest comes another charming yet deceptively sharp tale of friendship, family, and all the things that get in the way of both….This is a perfect book for a quick weekend read—warm, funny, yet full of insight.” — Elle
"A sheer delight." — New York Observer
“After more than a year of social distancing, who isn’t craving some good company? If that’s still a few months away for you,Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney has the next best thing: Her new novel, “Good Company.” — Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“[A] smoothly constructed story about love, friendship, and trust between two closely connected couples whose relationships go back decades." — Christian Science Monitor
“Masterfully building character…and dropping revelations through flashbacks, D’Aprix Sweeney’s writing is smooth and propelling. Readers of introspective, relational novels will devour this.” — Booklist
"Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney plumbs the depths of marriage, motherhood and friendship with warmth and wit. I devoured it in one gulp! Treat yourself to some Good Company." — Maria Semple, author of Today Will Be Different
"With candor and humor, Good Company tackles big issues—the reckoning between artistic ambition and family life, the strange tension between honesty and loyalty, the way time’s inevitable passage affects friendships and romance and our sense of self. Once again, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney has written a book you’ll stay up all night reading." — Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind
"Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's rich love story about friends who become family is generous and heartbreaking and true. I loved The Nest and I love Good Company even more." — Jade Chang, author of The Wangs vs. The World
"What happens when one accidental discovery changes everything you believe about yourself and the people you love? Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's unforgettable characters are so real, so human, and such good company (pun intended) as they struggle with profound questions about the lines between loyalty and secrecy, self-interest and self-preservation—and in doing so, ask us to do the same. Good Company is a beautifully nuanced meditation on marriage and friendship—their messiness and limitations, but also their boundless capacity for reinvention." — Lori Gottlieb, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
"This book is SMART. It breathes new life into topics such as love, marriage, parenting, friendship and that old chestnut, betrayal. Set in both an erudite theater-world Manhattan and a golden-hued Hollywood, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney hits a bullseye with every single scene. Good Company is brilliant company." — Elin Hilderbrand, author of 28 Summers
This novel considers how much the bonds of friendship and marriage can withstand in a tale that has as much heart as it does intrigue."
Sweeney’s warm, witty novel plumbs the depths of two marriages. Secrets and resentments abound, but loyalty and abiding affection carry this bicoastal tale of actors finding their way in real life.
Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s Good Company is a smart and nuanced examination of the growing pains of long relationships, sure to spark great conversations about marriage, friendship, and parenthood."
In Good Company, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s follow-up to her best-selling ‘The Nest,’ she deftly and empathetically charts the nuanced rhythms of friendships, particularly those that, under certain circumstances, take on the role of a close-knit family circle.
You don't need to be a fan of Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's bestseller The Nest to appreciate the high stakes, sly class commentary, and masterful storytelling of Good Company—but it wouldn't hurt.
"This effervescent, tender second novel by the bestselling author of The Nest is an enthralling saga of a marriage in midlife and the secrets that threaten to upend it."
[T]errific wit and inventiveness…Now that’s entertainment.
The vivacious and tender second novel by the bestselling author of The Nest is an absorbing, wise, and tender tale of a marriage in mid-life.
"Sweeney’s effectiveness as a novelist stems from her protean sympathy, her ability to move among these characters and capture each one’s feelings without judgment. As we see some of the same events from various points of view, we don’t learn who was right — who could ever be right, after all? — but we get a poignant, sometimes comic sense of the way we each experience the same events, the same decisions, the same mistakes. In Sweeney’s hands, that’s not a recipe for endless conflict, but a road to understanding and — maybe — forgiveness."
[T]ender and absorbing tale….Filled with humor and insight, Good Company is a warm and incisive novel about loyalty and the bonds of marriage and friendship.
"Sweeney’s effectiveness as a novelist stems from her protean sympathy, her ability to move among these characters and capture each one’s feelings without judgment. As we see some of the same events from various points of view, we don’t learn who was right — who could ever be right, after all? — but we get a poignant, sometimes comic sense of the way we each experience the same events, the same decisions, the same mistakes. In Sweeney’s hands, that’s not a recipe for endless conflict, but a road to understanding and — maybe — forgiveness."
[T]errific wit and inventiveness…Now that’s entertainment.
"Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney plumbs the depths of marriage, motherhood and friendship with warmth and wit. I devoured it in one gulp! Treat yourself to some Good Company."
"What happens when one accidental discovery changes everything you believe about yourself and the people you love? Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's unforgettable characters are so real, so human, and such good company (pun intended) as they struggle with profound questions about the lines between loyalty and secrecy, self-interest and self-preservation—and in doing so, ask us to do the same. Good Company is a beautifully nuanced meditation on marriage and friendship—their messiness and limitations, but also their boundless capacity for reinvention."
[A] smoothly constructed story about love, friendship, and trust between two closely connected couples whose relationships go back decades."
After more than a year of social distancing, who isn’t craving some good company? If that’s still a few months away for you,Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney has the next best thing: Her new novel, “Good Company.
"Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's rich love story about friends who become family is generous and heartbreaking and true. I loved The Nest and I love Good Company even more."
If I could "go long" on a book the way it works with stocks, I would "go long" on Good Company. (Book Stock Exchange, anyone?) This will absolutely hit the lists due to its combination of approachable, skilled prose from the author of bestseller "The Nest," the fantastic characters, and the universally shared desire to figure out who we really are.
"There are few writers who explore the depths of family and friendship with as much care and nuance as Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, whose new novel is a generous, empathetic portrayal of a marriage and friendship thrown into disarray by an accidental discovery. . . . D'Aprix Sweeney interrogates all that goes into building a life together — the messiness, the heartache, and the joy."
From the bestselling author of The Nest comes another charming yet deceptively sharp tale of friendship, family, and all the things that get in the way of both….This is a perfect book for a quick weekend read—warm, funny, yet full of insight.
"With candor and humor, Good Company tackles big issues—the reckoning between artistic ambition and family life, the strange tension between honesty and loyalty, the way time’s inevitable passage affects friendships and romance and our sense of self. Once again, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney has written a book you’ll stay up all night reading."
[P]ropulsive, character-steeped story of two best friends.
"A sheer delight."
[Sweeney’s] warmth and wit refresh a tale as old as time.
Masterfully building character…and dropping revelations through flashbacks, D’Aprix Sweeney’s writing is smooth and propelling. Readers of introspective, relational novels will devour this.
"This book is SMART. It breathes new life into topics such as love, marriage, parenting, friendship and that old chestnut, betrayal. Set in both an erudite theater-world Manhattan and a golden-hued Hollywood, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney hits a bullseye with every single scene. Good Company is brilliant company."
Masterfully building character…and dropping revelations through flashbacks, D’Aprix Sweeney’s writing is smooth and propelling. Readers of introspective, relational novels will devour this.
The vivacious and tender second novel by the bestselling author of The Nest is an absorbing, wise, and tender tale of a marriage in mid-life.
"A sheer delight."
12/01/2020
In this follow-up to Sweeney's 1.2 million-copy best-selling debut, The Nest, Flora Mancini finds an envelope containing the wedding ring her husband, Julian, supposedly lost way back. They've been together 20 years, first as struggling actors in New York barely managing to raise daughter Ruby and sustain Julian's little acting company, then with bigger success on the West Coast. Does Julian's duplicity mean their life together was a lie? With a 500,000-copy first printing.
Narrator Marin Ireland expertly shares the story of two couples through the ups and downs of their complex, long-standing friendship. The Good Company of the title is a theater group that three of the four friends were active in. It could also refer to the value of long-term, intertwined relationships as their dynamics shift. Ireland serves as a sympathetic narrator and supplies unique voices to bring the characters to life. Julian, one of the founders of The Good Company, has the strong voice of a leader. His wife, Flora, displays a wide range of emotions while navigating her roles as wife, mother, and friend. Daughter Ruby and best friend Margot are also given voices to highlight the layers of their relationships. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
2021-01-27
A tale of two marriages and a long-buried secret.
Thirteen years ago, when their daughter, Ruby, was 5 and they were having the happiest summer of their lives, Flora's husband, Julian, lost his wedding ring in a pond. The pond was on a property in upstate New York where Julian's theater group—Good Company—was putting on their annual outdoor play. There was a photo taken of the family sitting on the steps with their best friends, Margot and David, all leaning together, arms entwined around Ruby. Now Ruby is graduating from high school, and Flora is looking for the photograph to frame as a gift. In the process, she finds something else: the wedding ring that was supposed to be in the pond. While that unfortunate situation is unfolding in the present, flashbacks take us to the history of the friendships. Along the way, the characters' working worlds are depicted in absorbing detail: Margot is a megastar on a hospital TV series, Flora is a former Broadway singer and dancer, now a voice-over artist, David is—or was, actually—a cardiac surgeon. One of the best scenes in the book is the night David and Margot meet, over the body of a heart attack victim during Shakespeare in the Park. Always the New York maven, Sweeney nails the Central Park setting—"teenagers shrieking, the occasional smash of a bottle of beer morphing into a million glittering emeralds on the pavement"—and amusingly notes the many different versions of the story that survive over years of retelling. No one can agree how David ended up onstage or how they got to the Chinese restaurant afterward, but Margot "knew her version was—if not the most accurate—the best." All that said, this novel is far quieter than Sweeney's hit debut, The Nest(2016), and the characters are less well developed. We should know Flora best, but Margot is more clearly drawn (which would be no surprise to Flora, always second fiddle).
While a little thin, plotwise, Sweeney's second novel lives up to its title: warm, witty, and interesting.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940172767203 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 04/06/2021 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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