So Much a Part of You, Polly Dugan
So Much a Part of You, Polly Dugan
List: $24.98 | Sale: $17.49
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So Much a Part of You

Author: Polly Dugan

Narrator: Sandy Rustin

Unabridged: 5 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/10/2014


Synopsis

Two young women who've dated the same man navigate love, destiny, loss, and choice in this powerful debut.

Peter Herring was the center of Anne's universe in college, and now, a few years later, he's become the center of Anna's, and merely a minor player in his ex-girlfriend's world. That is, until Peter and Anna are invited into Anne's parents' home to visit with her dying mother, and he finds himself drawn back into her orbit.

Years later, when her own mother is dying, Anna will find herself yearning to reach out to Anne, with whom she had shared such a brief but intimate bond, and find solace in that moment from long ago. Perspective evolves with time, and so with time, what Peter means to each woman -- as lover, as friend, as connection to the past -- also evolves.

Through exploring Anne's and Anna's ties to Peter and unfolding the narratives of the people who weave meaningfully in and out of their lives, Polly Dugan reveals the power of family secrets, the ripple effects of her characters' emotional choices, and how poignantly their intertwined relationships shape who they are and how they love.

Possessing that rare ability to write the sweep of emotion with tenderness, Polly Dugan invites readers to witness the moments that define her characters -- the moments that come back full circle to comfort or haunt them, or both. So Much a Part of You will break your heart and still have you asking for more.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Tina (A Novel Time With Tina) on February 27, 2018

This book was a miss for me. My 9 yr old daughter knows how much I love reading and love collecting books, so when for Christmas I took her to Dollar Tree to buy gifts for everyone on her list, and she ended up buying and wrapping this gift for me, I knew I had to read it - and tell her I loved it -......more

Goodreads review by Barb on March 08, 2015

I received this book as a Goodreads First-Reads giveaway. I entered the contest thinking I would receive a collection of short stories. I did, but after reading for a while I realized that the characters were connected to those in subsequent stories in various ways. The entries are arranged chronolo......more

Goodreads review by Gary on April 07, 2014

23rd book read in 2014. Number 179 out of 367 on my all time book list. Follow the link below to see my video review: [URL not allowed]......more

Goodreads review by JRusitano on January 13, 2015

ARC provided by NetGalley for an honest review. This book was a miss for me. I admit, at first I was intrigued to see how all the stories intersected, but at the end I think this is where the book fell short. It left me asking, "what is this story really about?" As the previous reviewers mentioned, t......more

Goodreads review by Meg on January 17, 2015

So Much a Part of You masterfully captures the physical, emotional, and psychological interconnectedness of human lives: the book reflects on the ways people insert themselves into others' lives and raises the question of whether the model of consent recognized in the book's sexual relationships mig......more


Quotes

"This is what short story should be: exact and faithful invocations, full of nerve and stranded emotion, which leave eddying waves of thought and strangeness that linger long after the covers are closed shut. The stories are simultaneously eerie and poignant. They achieve a cool distance and the captured moment, the effect of which is how lonely and alien we can be to ourselves and together. The pathway to the heart is through the mind. I think of such writers as Joy Williams and Ann Beattie, only more spare and more raw and who, in their own way, were more spare and raw than O'Connor and Welty."—Robert Olmstead

"Polly Dugan makes the greatest deal the best of literature can offer--she will be honest, completely bare, and deliver a reader wholly into the secret world of her character's empathy. What a powerful and glorious thing it was to become these characters, to have my worldview touched by their lives. It's a rare skill to write pain with such love, such care, such warmth, and like Alice Munro and Elizabeth Strout, Polly Dugan has achieved a small miracle in breaking my heart and still having me ask for more. SO MUCH A PART OF YOUannounces a potent and fresh new voice to the landscape of short fiction."—Alan Heathcock

"There's a rawness to Polly Dugan's stories that lure you in and won't let go. The settings may be every day, but SO MUCH A PART OF YOU lingers in the imagination."—Lucinda Rosenfeld, author of The Pretty One

"Polly Dugan's stories read like whispered secrets. With their quiet drama, their nuanced internal conflicts, their characters full of longing, they immerse us in the messy mysteries of ordinary lives. But their vision is clear-headed and generous: they show us that even our briefest connections, our smallest actions, our most private thoughts can have great weight and consequence."—Scott Nadelson, author of Aftermath

"A solid debut.... Dugan's writing flows well and with thoughtfulness as she explores love, loss, and friendship through the three main characters and their families. Their decisions and foibles make for some emotional reading."—Publishers Weekly

"By portraying various individuals in their twenties and thirties as they move through formative stages in their lives, the ten linked stories in Dugan's debut collection convincingly capture the human condition.... With decisive economy and the dramatic immediacy lent by her use of the present tense, Dugan's powerful stories present a fast-paced, cohesive, and satisfying read."—Joyce Townsend, Library Journal

"Readers, take notice.... Strong characterization and acute rendering of settings provide glimpses into the successes and sorrows of these middle-class Irish Catholics.... Although short story fans are a natural audience for this promising debut, it will also appeal to general fiction readers."—Ellen Loughran, Booklist (starred review)

"A debut collection that could practically pass for a novel.... Subtlety of characterization is often the writer's strength, as her stories move through the conventional details of domesticity to panic attacks and 'uncharted insanity,' showing the fragility beneath even the most stable lives."—Kirkus Reviews

"Polly Dugan strikes the heart in SO MUCH A PART OF YOU."—Vanity Fair, "Hot Type"

"What struck me about the stories in SO MUCH A PART OF YOU is how finely wrought they are, how controlled."—Steve Almond, Rumpus