“What Lee has written is a subtle novel about how people on the edge of a financial cliff are forced to sacrifice their ambitions … If Lee dwelled exclusively on the friction between his three main characters, he’d have delivered a thoughtful working-class tale burnished with some Dylanesque wisdom. But Lee also weaves Yadin and Jeanette in a matrix of larger social pressures … If Lonesome Lies Before Usisn’t the best American novel of the year, it’s one of the most American American novels. It’s intensely concerned with the civic institutions that shape everyday lives, and with who’s affected when they disappear. That’s too much weight for the average country song to bear, but Lee’s novel carries it just fine.”
–Mark Athitakis, The Washington Post, June 8, 2017
Read more of Mark’s reviews here
