Imperfect Birds

Rosie Ferguson is seventeen and ready to enjoy the summer before her senior year of high school. She’s intelligent; athletic—a former state-ranked tennis doubles champion; and beautiful. She is, in short, everything her mother, Elizabeth, hoped she could be. The family’s move to Landsdale, with stepfather James in tow, hadn’t been as bumpy as Elizabeth feared. But as the school year draws to a close, there are disturbing signs that the life Rosie claims to be leading is a sham, and that Elizabeth’s hopes for her daughter to remain immune from the pull of the darker impulses of drugs and alcohol are dashed. Slowly and against their will, Elizabeth and James are forced to confront the fact that Rosie has been lying to them—and that her deceptions will have profound consequences.

Interviews with Ann Lamott can be seen here and on YouTube

“Lamott is a narrator who has relished and soaked up the details of her existence, equally of mirth and devastation, and spilled them onto her pages.” —The New York Times

"Better than brilliant. This is that rare kind of book that is like having a smart, dear, crazy (in the best sense) friend walk next to us in sunlight and in the dark night of the soul." —Publishers Weekly in regards to Plan B

"Heartbreaking and delightful, moving and hopeful, Imperfect Birds reminds us how our children are connected to and independent of us, and that no matter how difficult our struggle is with them, love underlies it all and saves us. This novel captures the deepest, purest, most terrifying experience of parents fearing for their children. With great insight and humor, Anne Lamott shows us what it means these dangerous days to be a parent, what it means to be a child, and what it means to be a family." —David Sheff, author of Beautiful Boy

"This is a hell of a book, tough and wonderful. A heartbreak and a heart- mender." —Martin Cruz Smith, author of Gorky Park and The Golden Mile