Media Center: 'The Newlyweds' by Nell Freudenberger

WHO:
Nell Freudenberger

WHAT:
THE NEWLYWEDS, a novel

WHEN:
Published by Knopf May 4, 2012

WHY:
“Piercingly funny and exquisitely heartbreaking.
“Amina of Dhaka, Bangladesh, meets George of Rochester, New York, on AsiaEuro.com and comes to America to wed. She is smart and disciplined at 24; he is 10 years older, a well-employed loner set in his ways. Her English is excellent, though she claims to find sarcasm difficult to catch even as she slyly employs it.
“Amina is a marvelously wily narrator, and Freudenberger greatly advances her standing as a writer skilled in understatement and deadpan wit as she continues her signature exploration of the dynamics between Americans and Southeast Asians in this exceptionally intimate, vivid, and suspenseful novel.
“Methodical and stoic Amina calculates to the day and dollar how long it will take her to become a citizen and save up enough money to bring her parents over, patiently dealing with prejudice, loneliness, and George’s limitations until she detects the corrosiveness of secrets and lies. Still, she returns to Bangladesh to collect her parents as planned, only to find that her feckless father is in serious trouble and that her first love is even more compelling than she remembered.
“A classic tale of missed chances, crushing errors of judgment, and scarring sacrifices…Perfectly pitched, piercingly funny, and exquisitely heartbreaking.”
—Donna Seaman, in a starred review for BOOKLIST

Media Resources:
About the book | Author bio | Read an excerpt | Meet the author | Download the jacket

Publicity:
Erinn Hartman | 212-572-2345 | ehartman@randomhouse.com