All My Mother's Lovers

A Novel

By: Ilana Masad

Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman, Ilana Masad

One of . . .
Electric Literature’s "Most Anticipated Debuts of Early 2020" • O, The Oprah Magazine’s "31 LGBTQ Books That'll Change the Literary Landscape in 2020" • Publishers Weekly’s "Spring 2020 Literary Fiction Announcements" • BuzzFeed's "Most Highly Anticipated Books of 2020" • The Millions's "Most Anticipated: The Great First-Half 2020 Book Preview" • The Rumpus's "What to Read When 2020 Is Just Around the Corner" • LGBTQ Reads's "2020 LGBTQAP Adult Fiction Preview: January-June" • Lit Hub’s "Most Anticipated Books of 2020" • BookRiot’s "Must-Read Debut Novels of 2020" • Bitch’s "27 Novels Feminists Should Read in 2020" • Harper’s Bazaar's "14 LGBTQ+ Books to Look For in 2020" • NewNowNext’s "11 Queer Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Spring" • Cosmopolitan's "12 Books You'll Be Dying to Read This Summer" • Salon’s "The Best and Boldest New Must-Read Books for May" • Lambda Literary’s “Most Anticipated LGBTQ Books of May 2020” • The Rumpus's "What to Read When You Want to Celebrate Mothers"

"A queer tour-de-force . . . Compelling and astonishing."–Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things

Intimacy has always eluded twenty-seven-year-old Maggie Krause—despite being brought up by married parents, models of domestic bliss—until, that is, Lucia came into her life. But when Maggie’s mom, Iris, dies in a car crash, Maggie returns home only to discover a withdrawn dad, an angry brother, and, along with Iris's will, five sealed envelopes, each addressed to a mysterious man she’s never heard of.

In an effort to run from her own grief and discover the truth about Iris—who made no secret of her discomfort with her daughter's sexuality—Maggie embarks on a road trip, determined to hand-deliver the letters and find out what these men meant to her mother. Maggie quickly discovers Iris’s second, hidden life, which shatters everything Maggie thought she knew about her parents’ perfect relationship. What is she supposed to tell her father and brother? And how can she deal with her own relationship when her whole world is in freefall?

Told over the course of a funeral and shiva, and written with enormous wit and warmth, All My Mother's Lovers is the exciting debut novel from fiction writer and book critic Ilana Masad. A unique meditation on the universality and particularity of family ties and grief, and a tender and biting portrait of sex, gender, and identity, All My Mother's Lovers challenges us to question the nature of fulfilling relationships.

Not only good for young adults…

Wonderful character study and a way to learn about love—family love, lesbian love, asexualoty, pansexuality, and straight love. Not the lovemaking but the love. The acceptance and the heartbreak. Well done! Well narrated!

Twists + Turns

I was not prepared for the ending of the book, but I loved that her daughter learned more about her mother’s past and saw her in a different light. The love between the family members is palpable.

I would recommend this book for those that love fiction and so much anticipation for what will come next that you listen way longer than planned.

Deeply Moving

This book very nearly made me cry in the airport multiple times. A wonderfully written and constructed drama about legacy, loss, love, family, tradition, and the deviation from it - delivered from the first hand perspective only a queer writer could bring to these topics so many of us share complicated feelings for. Masad masterfully crafts a raw and compelling story that I cannot recommend highly enough.

Decidedly queer and not gimmicky

This is an enjoyable book. The author did a great job of bringing the characters to life. Maggie is just good enough to like and flawed enough to be a real person. The relarionships read as real, though the portrayal of Peter goes too close to perfection. Iris is somewhat mysterious. You want to like her, but need to know more, and the laters slowly peel back. It stalls a bit on Maggie's journey when things move much slower, but it is a nice, fairly light read/listen. The narrator is great and does a good job of voicing the different the men differently from the women.

Amazing book

From a post structuralist perspective, this book represents one of the coolest post binary gender narratives I’ve ever come across. Keep doing your thing Ilana Masad. Can’t wait to see the metamorphosis in your next literary work.