The O'Briens - Softcover

"Behrens proves himself a first-rate storyteller. . . . As befits a saga so ambitious in design, there is an able mixture of agony and ecstasy throughout." --The Washington Post

"Impressive . . . World War II hovers in this novel's path like flak and rips the lives of the novel's characters to shreds. The last hundred pages are a powerful evocation of that war's effect . . . A major accomplishment." --The New York Times Book Review

"A fascinating depiction of how Irish sorrow ripples through time." --Bookpage

"Epic in its scope . . . lifetimes unfold in its pages. That the lives hold our attention so closely is a tribute to Behrens's beautiful writing, and a reminder of just how vital, brutal, and pervasive love is." --Huffington Post

"Brimming with character and incident, even more ambitious in scope than its prizewinning predecessor, The Law of Dreams. . . . Behrens celebrates the warmth of human attachments without pretending they can ever entirely dispel the existential chill of mortality and loneliness." --The Daily Beast

"Gritty and nimble. . . . The O'Briens has the surprising, sometimes-random quality of real life rather than the plotted-ness of a conventional novel." --The Columbus Dispatch

"A deftly painted portrait of a marriage." --The Seattle Times

"Peter Behrens's family saga The O'Briens spans the first half of the Canadian twentieth century, finding a parallel epic in an unforgettable narrative of marriage." --Vogue.com

"This is a saga that warrants your attention. This is a story whose quiet brilliance can't be ignored. It's an intimate epic, if that makes sense--a portrait of an entire world through the lens of a single bloodline. All the joy and passion, all the anger and fear, all the love and loss involved in simply living and being--that's what Peter Behrens has captured with The O'Briens." --The Maine Edge

"Impressive in its scope and ambitious in its goals. Some of [the] descriptions are flat-out jaw-dropping . . . In giving his family a past few of them knew existed, Behrens has made The O'Briens unforgettably alive." --The Globe and Mail

"Having read both Buddenbrooks and The O'Briens this summer, I can affirm they are definitely in the same league--great, juicy tales that will make you take a second look at annoying relatives. They are, after all, part of the big picture, otherwise known as history and destiny." --The Gazette (Montreal)

"Illuminating . . . An epic along the lines of Middlesex in the way it follows a family through time and examines the results of their actions . . . A brooding novel, engrossing in its scope and detail, The O'Briens keeps sight of the family's personal stories amid the larger history of much of the twentieth century." --Booklist

"Powerful . . . Moments of grace and romance are rocked by cruel words and violence in this epic, a piece of rough beauty itself." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)