Synopses & Reviews
O, The Oprah Magazine's Best Books of the Summer
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Set in contemporary Louisville, Leesa Cross-Smith’s mesmerizing first novel surrounding the death of a police officer is a requiem for marriage, friendship and family, from an author Roxane Gay has called “a consummate storyteller.”
One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2018: Entertainment Weekly, Southern Living, Harper's BAZAAR, The Millions, Electric Lit, Book Riot, BookBub, Chicago Review of Books, POPSUGAR, Refinery29, NYLON, and SheReads
Evi — a classically-trained ballerina — was nine months pregnant when her husband Eamon was killed in the line of duty on a steamy morning in July. Now, it is winter, and Eamon's adopted brother Dalton has moved in to help her raise six-month-old Noah.
Whiskey & Ribbons is told in three intertwining, melodic voices: Evi in present day, as she’s snowed in with Dalton during a freak blizzard; Eamon before his murder, as he prepares for impending fatherhood and grapples with the danger of his profession; and Dalton, as he struggles to make sense of his life next to Eamon’s, and as he decides to track down the biological father he’s never known.
In the vein of Jojo Moyes’ After You, Whiskey & Ribbons explores the life that continues beyond loss, with a complicated brotherly dynamic reminiscent of Elizabeth Strout’s The Burgess Boys. It’s a meditation on grief, hope, motherhood, brotherhood and surrogate fatherhood. Above all, it’s a novel about what it means — and whether it’s possible — to heal.
Review
“Leesa Cross-Smith is a consummate storyteller who uses her formidable talents to tell the oft-overlooked stories of people living in that great swath of place between the left and right coasts." Roxane Gay, author Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body and Bad Feminist
Review
"Cross-Smith examines lovers, brothers, mothers, fathers and sons with such mammoth empathy that this is one of those books I find essential for making sense of our world today." Porochista Khakpour, author of the novels Sons & Other Flammable Objects and The Last Illusion
Review
"Beautiful and brutal, a gut-punch and a poem — I love this book....Cross-Smith is a master." Megan Stielstra, The Wrong Way to Save Your Life
About the Author
A PEN Open Book Award Nominee, Leesa Cross-Smith has been a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and Iowa Short Fiction Award. She is the author of the short story collection Every Kiss a War and lives in Louisville, KY.