Brass (Aliu) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
For Elsie and Lulu, the mother and daughter at the center of the book, the most valuable thing in Waterbury is a ticket out.…The plot advances through each woman's story; as the symmetries between them pile up, along with misunderstandings, the novel accumulates momentum and emotional power…They'll never see each other, or themselves, as clearly as the reader gets to see them both—that's the magic trick here. In granting the reader access to both women's interiority, Aliu brings to life the simple, heartbreaking fact that though our stories can intersect, we're ourselves alone…From its opening page, Brass simmers with anger—the all too real byproduct of working hard for not enough, of being a woman in a place where women have little value, of getting knocked down one too many times. But when the simmer breaks into a boil, Aliu alchemizes that anger into love, and in doing so creates one of the most potent dramatizations of the bond between mother and daughter that I've ever read.
Julie Buntin - New York Times Book Review


An exceptional debut novel, one that plumbs the notion of the American Dream while escaping the clichés that pursuit almost always brings with it.… [Xhenet] Aliu delivers a living, breathing portrait of places left behind.
Eugenia Williamson - Boston Globe


The writing blazes on the page.… The narrative is also incredibly funny, sly, and always popping with personality.… So much about the book is also extraordinarily timely, especially when it focuses on class and culture, and what they really mean.… Yes, we might be lost from who and what we really are. But, as this audacious novel shows, we can—and we must—keep struggling to make our own place in the world.
Carolyn Leavitt - San Francisco Chronicle


A] lyrically insightful debut novel by Xhenet Aliu, telling in sharp, pithy parallel narratives the story of a waitress in small-town Connecticut who falls in love with a charismatic Albanian immigrant and the story of her grown daughter, likewise feeling trapped in that same small town and seeking answers about her past. Aliu makes both these stories immediately touching and weaves them together in ways that are surprising without being sappy.
Christian Science Monitor


Aliu is witty and unsparing in her depiction of the town and its inhabitants, illustrating the granular realities of the struggle for class mobility.
The New Yorker


Lustrous… a tale alive with humor and gumption, of the knotty, needy bond between a mother and daughter.… [Brass] marks the arrival of a writer whose work will stand the test of time.
Oprah Magazine



Aliu juxtaposes a mother and daughter’s late teenage desperation 17 years apart in her striking first novel.… This is a captivating, moving story of drastic measures, failed schemes, and the loss of innocence.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review) Deftly written in a style that is evocative of time and place, this universal story of the search for home is well translated into the blue-collar world of Elsie and Lulu.
Library Journal


(Starred review) A boldly witty and astute inquiry into the nature-versus-nurture debate, the inheritance of pain, and the dream of transcendence.
Booklist


(Starred review) [G]limmering.… Aliu's riveting, sensitive work shines with warmth, clarity, and a generosity of spirit. Her… writing is polished and precise, bringing her characters glowingly to life.
Kirkus Reviews