Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots

"Soffer's breathtaking prose interweaves delectable descriptions of food with a profoundly redemptive story about loss, self-discovery, and acceptance." — O: The Oprah Magazine "Teenage Lorca, who has been cutting herself since she was six, still can’t win the attention she craves from her beautiful and inaccessible mother, and so she concocts an impossible scheme to save herself from being sent to boarding school: She’ll re-create the best dinner her mother ever ate, featuring an Iraqi dish called masgouf that here is as fraught with significance as Babette’s feast. Lorca is a diligent dreamer, enlisting the help of a bookstore clerk named Blot and cooking lessons from a grieving Iraqi widow. But in this novel of shifting point of views, you want to linger longest with Lorca; both her shortcomings and her desires are so identifiable you can’t help but root for her." —Vogue.com "The surpassing power of empathy between adolescents and senior citizens manifests itself in the novel by Jessica Soffer, Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots . Ms. Soffer poignantly describes how two women, in spite of their generational divide and each feeling the absence of family, use Persian cooking to create a new understanding of what family provides. The women’s distinct approaches to their lives and their divergent attitudes toward collective and personal responsibility remind us of the potential in our everyday relationships to enhance empathy in our communities." —Ms. Bloom Raskin, deputy secretary of the Treasury (for the Wall Street Journal 's "Books of the Year 2015: Who Read What") "TOMORROW THERE WILL BE APRICOTS is an astounding accomplisment for a young, new voice. Undoubtedly this is the beginining of a spectacular career." — Woodbury Magazine "Told in Victoria and Lorca's alternating first-person voices, the character driven novel… offers fully realized, multidimensional characters who invite empathy and compassion." — Booklist "An unhappy teen and a shellshocked widow make a vital connection, though not the one they initially think, in Soffer’s somber debut....Well-written and atmospheric." — Kirkus "This powerful debut sheds light on the meaning and power of family, whether its members are blood-related or “created” by nonrelatives. Food is what strengthens relationships here, particularly the search for specific recipes. Young, troubled Lorca lives in New York City; her distracted mother, a chef, is rather uninterested in Lorca’s psychological troubles; her estranged father lives in New Hampshire. Researching how to prepare an unusual meal, Lorca feels she can win her mother’s interest and love if she can prepare this delicacy. She meets Victoria, who once owned a restaurant specializing in Iraqi meals. Their cooking lessons lead to confided morsels of their own pasts. However, it is not just the love of food but understanding and acceptance that help to make this such a lovely novel." —STARRED, Library Journal "Lovers of food-centered fiction should find some nourishment in Soffer’s debut." —Publishers Weekly "This first novel by Jessica Soffer is a work of beauty in words. There is no dead wood in this story; not a word is indispensable. Ms. Soffer is a master artist painting the hidden hues of the human soul. Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots is an intelligent work in the vein of Azar Nafisi where the humanity of the characters transcends cultural or national differences and illustrates commonalities." — New York Journal of Books " Tomorrow there will be Apricots is not a fairytale a — “Sassy, brash, acrobatic and colorful . . . I want to read it again and again.” — Time “Impressive . . . Soffer’s style is natural and assured.” —Meg Wolitzer, All Things Considered , NPRLorca spends her life poring over cookbooks to earn the love of her distracted mother, a chef, who is now packing her off to boarding school. Desperate to prove herself, Lorca resolves to track down the recipe for her mother’s ideal meal. She signs up for cooking lessons from Victoria, an Iraqi-Jewish immigrant profoundly shaken by her husband’s death. Soon these two women develop a deeper bond while their concoctions—cardamom pistachio cookies, baklava, and masgouf —bake in Victoria’s kitchen. But their individual endeavors force a reckoning with the past, the future, and the truth—whatever it might be. In Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots we see how food sustains not just our bodies, but our hopes as well. Bukra fil mish mish , the Arabic saying goes. Tomorrow, apricots may bloom.“A profound and necessary new voice. Soffer’s prose is as controlled as it is fresh, as incisive as it is musical. Soffer has arrived early, with an orchestra of talent at her disposal.” —Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin “Moving [and] extraordinary.” — Atlantic “A work of beauty in words . . . Soffer is a master artist painting the hidden hues of the human soul.” — New York Journal of Books JESSICA SOFFER earned her MFA at Hunter College. Her work has appeared in Granta, Martha Stewart Living, the New York Times, Real Simple, the Wall Street Journal, and Vogue. She teaches fiction at Connecticut College and lives in New York. Author photograph © Beowulf SheehanLook for the Reader’s Guide at www.marinerreadersguides.comMARINERwww.marinerbooks.com$14.95ISBN 978-0-544-28973-4Fiction0414/1572175 JESSICA SOFFER earned her MFA at Hunter College, where she was a Hertog Fellow. Her work has appeared in Granta, Vogue and the New York Times ,xa0among other publications. Her father, a painter and sculptor, emigrated from Iraq to the US in the late 1940s. She teaches fiction at Connecticut College and lives in New York City. Read more