I Smile Back

by Amy Koppelman

Overview

"Powerful. Koppelman's instincts help her navigate these choppy waters with inventiveness and integrity."—Los Angeles Times

"Koppelman explores with ruthless honesty a woman come undone."—Bookslut

"Koppelman mostly writes from inside Laney's disillusioned mind, ricocheting between the quotidian details of wife and motherhood and big-picture musings, forming exquisite stand-alone tone poems."—Elle

Now a major motion picture starring Sarah Silverman in her dramatic-acting debut, and Josh Charles, I Smile Back tells the affecting tale of Laney Brooks, a mother and wife on a self-destructive streak. She takes the drugs she wants, sleeps with the men she wants, disappears when she wants. Lurking beneath Laney's seemingly composed surface is the impulse to follow in her father's footsteps, to leave and topple her family's balance in the process.

The film adaptation of I Smile Back premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in the prestigious US Dramatic competition. Silverman's affecting dramatic turn in the lead role has garnered praise in film trade reviews as "tremendous," "terrific," and "awards worthy," and will inspire an onslaught of attention upon the film's national theatrical release.

Amy Koppelman is a graduate of Columbia's MFA program. Her writing has appeared in the New York Observer and Lilith. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children, and is the author of the novels A Mouthful of Air and I Smile Back. She adapted the screenplay for the film from her own novel.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781937512460
Publisher:	Two Dollar Radio
Publication date:	11/23/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	194
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Amy Koppelman is a graduate of Columbia's MFA program. Her writing has appeared in The New York Observer and Lilith. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children, and is the author of the novels, A Mouthful of Air, and I Smile Back. She adapted the screenplay for the film from her own novel.

Amy Koppelman is a graduate of Columbia's MFA program. Her writing has appeared in The New York Observer and Lilith. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children, and is the author of the novels, A Mouthful of Air and Hesitation Wounds.

Editorial Reviews

This crushing novel by the author of A Mouthful of Air is a shocking portrait of suburban ennui gone horribly awry. Laney Brooks, approaching middle age in Short Hills, N.J., appears to have it all: doting husband, two beautiful children, the big house with a kidney-shaped pool. But beneath the facade of upper-middle-class perfection, Laney's life descends into a chasm of indiscriminate sex and drug and alcohol abuse. Koppelman's prose style is understated and crackling; each sentence is laden with a foreboding sense of menace, whether she's describing a sunny Florida resort or the back alley of a seedy strip mall. Laney's self-debasement can be a bit over-the-top at times, but like a crime scene or a flaming car wreck, it becomes impossible not to stare. (Dec.)

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Publishers Weekly

A beautiful, thirty-something suburban housewife, Laney Brooks is married with two lovely children to a successful insurance broker and author. However, her perfect life is a facade: she drinks too much, pops pills, snorts cocaine, and sleeps with any man who catches her eye. Koppelman's portrait of this self-destructive suburban matron is wrenchingly accurate. In elegant, almost poetic prose, she guides readers through the mind-numbing activities that make up Laney's days and dissects those events that have precipitated her deep, chronic clinical depression. This short novel is not an easy read; so vividly is Laney's misery limned that as the heroine spirals downward, readers intimately share her agonies. The author, whose first novel, A Mouthful of Air, detailed a young New Yorker's postpartum depression, is becoming the spot-on chronicler of 21st-century women with mental illness. Her brave and challenging look beyond appearances of beauty to the ugly reality of a disturbed mind will remain with readers long after they've finished the book. Highly recommended for literary collections.
—Andrea Kempf

Library Journal

Powerful. Koppelman’s instincts help her navigate these choppy waters with inventiveness and integrity.”
——Los Angeles Times

“Koppelman explores with ruthless honesty a woman come undone.”
—Bookslut

“Koppelman mosly writes from inside Laney’s disillusioned mind, ricocheting between the quotidian details of wife and motherhood and big-picture musings, forming exquisite stand-alone tone poems.”
—Elle

"We've been buzzing about this book all week, thanks to Sarah Silverman's career-changing performance... Koppelman writes about pain in a painfully beautiful way."
—Glamour

“This crushing novel by the author of A Mouthful of Air is a shocking portrait of suburban ennui gone horribly awry. Koppelman’s prose style is understated and crackling; each sentence is laden with a foreboding sense of menace. Like a crime scene or a flaming car wreck, it becomes impossible not to stare.”
—Publishers Weekly 

“Laney Brooks is a woman in agony, suffering from an undefined malady that makes standard housewife ennui—boredom from carpooling or picking up dry cleaning—look like a picnic. Laney’s despair, [is] ably depicted by Amy Koppelman in her affecting second novel.”
—Bookforum 

“This book is a demanding read, with relentless pacing, a choppy, aggressive tone and a compelling battle for redemption.”
—Lilith Magazine 

“Koppelman’s writing is expressive and nuanced... [a] potent novel.”
—Booklist 

“[Koppelman’s] brave and challenging look beyond appearances of beauty to the ugly reality of a disturbed mind will remain with readers long after they’ve finished the book. Highly recommended for literary collections.”
—Library Journal

From the Publisher