Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The only girl in the strong, loving Bronstein family, nine-year-old Ruby anchors this adept debut from Hermann. Ruby has always felt both admiration for and rejected by her three charismatic older brothers; she is similarly intrigued by her Holocaust survivor father, whose observance of Jewish customs persists despite his professed loss of faith. Ruby's own sense of faith, family and self will be sorely tested over the next 10-plus years: her oldest brother Abe's schizophrenic break, a truly frightening event to 10-year-old Ruby, is but the first in a series of crises. The well-developed chapters have a tendency to read like individual stories, but Hermann keeps the novel's themes of loss and resiliency constant. Foreshadowing and symbolism get heavy, but what could have become a litany of family pain is tempered, in Hermann's eminently capable narrative, by young Ruby's concurrent journey toward self-discovery. (Aug.)
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Review
"The Cure for Grief is a searingly beautiful, stunning debut, saturated in the lyricism of loss and mourning yet rooted in the everyday. The book's sadness is irradiated by a wild hope as the characters take their places among the living; we are drawn in by the force of their sorrow but elevated by their rich and complex attachments to each other, the past, the future, and their own inner lives." -- Mary Gordon, author of Circling My Mother

"Written in measured, splendid prose, Nellie Hermann's debut novel is a courageous gift to readers. Far more than a coming-of-age story, The Cure for Grief is both vivid in its immediacy and poignant in its timelessness." -- Howard Norman, author of Devotion

"The Cure for Grief is a profound and thrilling achievement -- an exemplar of the reason books should be written and read. Nellie Hermann is wise beyond her years, though to say this is to miss the point -- that all great artists float beyond age and outside of time. The Cure for Grief is a coming-of-age story that reaches far beyond its subject; it shimmers with clarity and grace, fulfilling the deepest of literature's promises -- drawing us into a riveting world, punching us with emotion, revealing the most secret truths of the soul. Her vision is that of the seer, whose illuminating beam might help the reader learn how better to live." -- Shira Nayman, author of Awake in the Dark

"Stunning. A subtle, elegiac coming-of-age novel about catastrophe, grief and the persistence of everyday life. A gorgeously readable meditation on mourning and survival. Hermann is a young author to watch."-- Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Editorial Reviews
Review
“The formula that made more than half a million readers in France fall in love with this book has, among other ingredients: intelligent humor, fine sentiments, an excellent literary and philosophical backdrop, good taste, sophistication and substance.”
—La Repubblica

“Enthusiastically recommended for anyone who loves books that grow quietly and then blossom suddenly.”
—Marie Claire (France)

“An exquisite book in the form of a philosophical fable that has enchanted hundreds of thousands of readers.”
—Elle (Italy)

“Nobody ever imagined that this tender, funny book with a philosophical vein would have enjoyed such incredible success. For some, it is part Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder, part Monsieur Malaussene by Daniel Pennac. While for others it resembles a written version of the film Amelie. Either way, readers are responding in vast numbers.”
—Le Monde

Product Description
The enthralling international bestseller.

We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building’s tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence.

Then there’s Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.

Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma’s trust and to see through Renée’s timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.