Very Cold People

A Novel

By: Sarah Manguso

Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • The masterly debut novel from “an exquisitely astute writer” (The Boston Globe), about growing up in—and out of—the suffocating constraints of small-town America.

LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD • “Compact and beautiful . . . This novel bordering on a novella punches above its weight.”—The New York Times

“Very Cold People reminded me of My Brilliant Friend.”—The New Yorker

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, NPR, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Good Housekeeping

“My parents didn’t belong in Waitsfield, but they moved there anyway.”

For Ruthie, the frozen town of Waitsfield, Massachusetts, is all she has ever known.

Once home to the country’s oldest and most illustrious families—the Cabots, the Lowells: the “first, best people”—by the tail end of the twentieth century, it is an unforgiving place awash with secrets.

Forged in this frigid landscape Ruthie has been dogged by feelings of inadequacy her whole life. Hers is no picturesque New England childhood but one of swap meets and factory seconds and powdered milk. Shame blankets her like the thick snow that regularly buries nearly everything in Waitsfield.

As she grows older, Ruthie slowly learns how the town’s prim facade conceals a deeper, darker history, and how silence often masks a legacy of harm—from the violence that runs down the family line to the horrors endured by her high school friends, each suffering a fate worse than the last. For Ruthie, Waitsfield is a place to be survived, and a girl like her would be lucky to get out alive.

In her eagerly anticipated debut novel, Sarah Manguso has written, with characteristic precision, a masterwork on growing up in—and out of—the suffocating constraints of a very old, and very cold, small town. At once an ungilded portrait of girlhood at the crossroads of history and social class as well as a vital confrontation with an all-American whiteness where the ice of emotional restraint meets the embers of smoldering rage, Very Cold People is a haunted jewel of a novel from one of our most virtuosic literary writers.

©2022 Sarah Manguso (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Though dealing with life’s ugly, messy truths, her writing is compact and beautiful. So masterly is Manguso at making beauty of boring old daily pain. . . [the book is] a compendium of the insults of a deprived childhood: a thousand cuts exquisitely observed and survived. . . . This novel bordering on a novella punches above its weight.”—The New York Times

“Reading Manguso is like watching someone skin an animal, slice its throat and drain its blood, preparing it quickly and efficiently for consumption. You wonder, reading her succinct and devastating sentences, just what she had to do to get there.”—Los Angeles Times

“[Manguso] belongs to a cohort of minimalist, stream-of-consciousness writers—Jenny Offill, Sheila Heti, Eula Biss—whose texts work out the equations of domestic life and creative ambition.”—New Yorker

Nicely written short novel

I liked this book a lot. Very nicely written. I wish it could have gone on longer. I recommend it highly.

Grows on you

It took a while to grow on me. But once it did, I loved it. Sad story. Captures what violence against women does and it’s Inter generational consequences

Vivid Descriptions, Not Much Story

Listening to this book was like looking at a photo album with sharply focused snapshots of someone’s childhood. But not too many snapshots. And not much in the way of a story line. Just moments in time. The author has crafted an intense series of ‘snapshots,’ more or less in chronological order, from the childhood and adolescence of the main character. The narrator does a nice job of bringing those snapshots to life. It was an interesting listen. Captivating in moments, the way that good poetry can be. What it was not was a good story.

Bleak

The ordinariness of violence toward women and girls is slowly devastating. Well done. Hard to enjoy.

A Mundane Character Study

There isn’t much to the plot here, but if you are interested in a character study this may be a book for you. The chapters are like short stories put in chronological order. The best synopsis is this: the narrator’s family is poor and not many people like her. That said, the writing is very nice. The descriptions are great. The dialogue is very believable.

Just dull

Reads with the observational droll of a suburban drive by. Shallow. Jaded. Lacking. Don’t bother.

Nothing

I liked nothing about it. I saw no point to the story. I do not recommend it.

Just ok.

The writing itself wasn’t bad; I just didn’t like this book very much overall. Not the kind of book that draws you in or holds your attention.

A book without a plot

This reads like a series of rambling thoughts as the main character describes random episodes from her childhood, surrounded by very cold people. Good prose, ok narration, but sooooo boring.

Boring

Yeah... believe any review that says this book has no plot. so glad to be done. I hope I never read something this random ever again.