W&N snaps up Lombardo's 'immersive' second novel
Weidenfeld & Nicolson (W&N) will publish Same As It Ever Was by American novelist Claire Lombardo.
Lettice Franklin, publishing director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Ana Ban at Trident, on behalf of Ellen Levine. Lee Boudreaux, executive editor at Doubleday, acquired North American rights.
The book will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in hardback, trade paperback, audiobook and e-book in June 2024.
Same As It Ever Was tells the complete and complicated story of one woman’s life and asks what it takes to make – and to not break – a family.
It follows Julia Ames who, at 57, Julia “has found herself with an improbably lovely life", according to W&N. “Despite her inclination towards self-sabotage, she has a husband she loves, two happy children and a quiet, contented existence in the suburbs. But it feels like things are beginning to change.
“Her beloved but belligerent teenage daughter is about to depart for college, prompting fears about an empty nest. Her always well-behaved son, Ben, is acting strangely and will soon make a shocking announcement.
“And, in the local grocery store, Julia encounters a woman she hasn’t seen for 20 years – a woman whose friendship was once both her lifeline and, very nearly, her downfall. Consumed with her checkered past and the chaos of her present, Julia starts to spin out of control, at risk of destroying all she most loves.”
Lombardo’s first novel The Most Fun We Ever Had was a New York Times bestseller and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020.
Franklin said: “I love Claire Lombardo’s books so much. With this, her second novel, she cements her reputation as the queen of the family novel. Same As it Ever Was is a novel about a woman who has – against the odds – built a life she really loves, and then watches as it starts to crumble before her eyes in a few short months.
“It is immersive, character-driven, funny, moving, incredibly well observed and deeply enjoyable.”
Lombardo said: “There was so much I was interested in exploring while writing Same As It Ever Was – intergenerational friendship, maternal ambivalence, the evolving dynamics of a marriage over decades, and the ways in which we’re shaped and defined by our formative years, for better or worse.
“At its centre is Julia Ames, a woman who’s always had a slightly harder time than most moving through the world but who desires things I think will be familiar to readers – contentment, the understanding of those closest to her, and, ultimately, love.”
Lombardo lives in Iowa City, where she has taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and works part-time as a bookseller at indie bookshop Prairie Lights Books.
