About Up From the Blue
• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (September 21, 2010)
Tillie Harris’s life is in disarray—her husband is away on business, the boxes in her new home aren’t unpacked, and the telephone isn’t even connected yet. Though she’s not due for another month, sudden labor pains force Tillie to reach out to her estranged father for help, a choice that means facing the painful memories she’s been running from since she was a little girl.
An extraordinary debut from a talented new voice, Up from the Blue untangles the year in Tillie’s life that changed everything: 1975, the year her mother disappeared.
Praise for Up From the Blue:
“Up From the Blue deftly portrays a family with contradictions we can all relate to—it’s beautiful and maddening, hopeful and condemning, simple, yet like a knot that takes a lifetime to untangle. You will love it completely, even as it hurts you…it’s a heartbreaking, rewarding story that still haunts me.”
— Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
“A haunting tale of the terrible ways in which we fail each other; of the whys, the what ifs, and the what nows. This is not a book you’ll soon forget.”
— Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author of Water for Elephants
“Henderson beautifully portrays this family in crisis through its most voluble and consistent member. Rapturous prose reveals young Tillie’s heart as she yearns for the mother who will make her world better but who can’t seem to mend her own tortured soul. A triumphant debut.”
— Library Journal
“Henderson shows remarkable compassion in her debut novel, an affecting portrait of depression through a child’s eyes.”
— Booklist
“A rare literary page-turner full of shocking discoveries and twists. Susan Henderson has created a remarkable narrator—as memorable for her feistiness as for her tenderness. Up From the Blue is going to be one of this year’s major debuts.”
— Josh Kilmer-Purcell, author of I Am Not Myself These Days
About Susan Henderson
Susan Henderson is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the founder of the literary blog LitPark: Where Writers Come to Play (www.litpark.com). Her work has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, the Pittsburgh Quarterly, North Atlantic Review, Opium, and many other publications. Henderson lives in New York, and Up from the Blue is her first novel.
Connect with Susan:
- On the LitPark blog
- On Facebook
- On Twitter: @litpark
Susan Henderson’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS
Monday, September 27th: The Zen Leaf
Monday, September 27th: Sara’s Organized Chaos
Tuesday, September 28th: Literary Feline
Wednesday, September 29th: Reviews from the Heart
Thursday, September 30th: Rundpinne
Monday, October 4th: Books Like Breathing
Thursday, October 7th: In the Next Room
Wednesday, October 13th: Raging Bibliomania
Monday, October 18th: Life In Review
Tuesday, October 19th: Peeking Between the Pages
Wednesday, October 20th: lit*chick
Thursday, October 21st: Booksie’s Blog
Friday, October 22nd: she reads and reads