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Landfall
A Novel
Two mothers and their teenage daughters, whose lives collide in a fatal car crash, take turns narrating Ellen Urbani’s breathtaking novel Landfall, set in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Eighteen-year-olds Rose and Rosebud have never met, but they share a birth year, a name, and a bloody pair of sneakers. Rose’s quest to atone for the accident that kills Rosebud, a young woman so much like herself but for the color of her skin, unfolds alongside Rosebud’s battle to survive the devastating flooding in the Lower Ninth Ward and to find help for her unstable mother.
These unforgettable characters give voice to the dead of the storm and, in a stunning twist, demonstrate how what we think we know can make us blind to what matters most.
Ellen Urbani is the author of the memoir When I Was Elena, a Book Sense Notable selection documenting her life in Guatemala during the final years of that country’s civil war. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, including the much-read Modern Love column, and numerous anthologies. She earned a BA degree in writing and design at the University of Alabama in 1991, served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala from 1991 to 1993, then returned to the United States where she earned an MA degree in art therapy from Marylhurst University, specializing in oncological illness and trauma survival. She has served as a federal disaster and trauma specialist and has lectured widely on the topic. She has also taught writing in Portland, Oregon.
Lisa Reneé Pitts is an accomplished actress in theater, film, and television, appearing in The Practice, The Shield, and Law & Order. A native New Yorker, she holds a BFA in theater arts from Rutgers University and resides in Burbank, California.
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Reviews
“With her new novel Landfall, Ellen Urbani enters the world of American fiction with a bang and a flourish…A hell of a book and worthy of the storm and times it describes.”
“Ellen Urbani has written an amazing and original piece of literature. If you love family sagas characterized by women holding the generations together via a magical combination of grit and grace, such as Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits, you will love this haunting book!”
“A gorgeous and raw rendering of a young woman’s struggle for redemption, for forgiveness, for salvation, in the aftermath of the devastating catastrophe of Katrina. Landfall is not about a storm; it is about the resiliency of the human spirit, and our ongoing need to make sense of the world around us, no matter the cost. Urbani has crafted a powerful novel that will resonate in your soul long after you have turned the final page. Outstanding!”
“Along with the levees of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina breaks open two families of women, revealing—and creating—unexpected ties of the heart…[Urbani] never shies away from the realities of poverty, race, and racism, nor does she fail to give people, both white and black, individual characters, unique histories, and often warm hearts.”
“A poignant, provocative, and utterly compelling story of two fatherless girls forced into adulthood too soon. Ellen Urbani has accomplished the nearly impossible: creating a fictional world so real you’ll revel in its beauty and flinch from its pain. I could not put this book down. And the ending is worth every page that precedes it.”
“A deeply soulful novel set during the chaos of Hurricane Katrina and the long, moody ebb of its aftermath, Landfall recalls Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God for the strength of the women in its pages, and their resilience despite immeasurable loss.”
“From the first sentence, I was drawn into the intricately wrought emotional lives of Urbani’s nuanced characters and didn’t put the book down until I’d found my way to the end. This novel is as delightful and compelling as it is necessary…Landfall, like the best literature, delivers an expansive, rich sense of humanity.”
“Reading Ellen Urbani’s writing is like reading a painting or a song. It’s that colorful and alive. Urbani sweeps you up into her world and carries you through this gripping story about two young women affected by similar tragedies.”
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