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    Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots: A Novel
    Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots: A Novel
    Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots: A Novel
    Audiobook11 hours

    Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots: A Novel

    Written by Jessica Soffer

    Narrated by Kathleen Gati and Kate Reinders

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A troubled teen turns to cooking lessons to win her emotionally distant mother’s love in this “moving [and] extraordinary” novel (The Atlantic).

    Lorca spends her life poring over cookbooks to earn the love of her distracted, angry mother, a prominent Manhattan chef who left Lorca’s father and 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 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

    “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, NPR

    Breathtaking…a profoundly redemptive story about loss, self-discovery, and acceptance.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

    Soffer’s prose is as controlled as it is fresh, as incisive as it is musical.” —Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateApr 16, 2013
    ISBN9781469249964
    Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots: A Novel
    Author

    Jessica Soffer

    Jessica Soffer earned her MFA at Hunter College, where she was a Hertog Fellow. Her work has appeared in Granta and Vogue, among other publications. Her father, a painter and sculptor, emigrated from Iraq to the United States in the late 1940s. She teaches fiction at Connecticut College and lives in New York City.

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    Reviews for Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots

    3.5/5

    54 ratings7 reviews

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    • 3/5
      3.25 starsLorca is a teenager. Her parents are divorced and she cuts herself. She has been suspended from school and is now waiting to attend a boarding school. In the meantime, she is trying to find a recipe, her mother’s favourite, to cook for her. Victoria is an elderly lady who has just lost her husband to cancer. She is hoodwinked into giving cooking lessons, and Lorca joins in. I’m waffling between ok and good on this one. I wasn’t sure what to expect from it, and it was better than I expected, actually. I felt really badly for Lorca, as no matter what she did, she never seemed to be able to please her mom. Have to admit, I thought the guy helping her was a bit unrealistic. There were a few “twists” at the end, only one that was more of a surprise to me. The book is told mostly from points of view alternating between Lorca and Victoria, but there are a couple of chapters thrown in from Joseph’s (Victoria’s husband) POV from years earlier. For those who like that sort of thing, there are a few recipes thrown in.
    • 3/5
      TOMORROW THERE WILL BE APRICOTS by Jessica SofferLorca, Victoria and Blot, three damaged people, populate this novel that touches on Iraq, cutting and drug addiction leavened by lies, secrets and poor parenting. Ultimately hopeful, the book drags a bit after many chapters of discouraged, depressed people. I was happy to see the end. The three main characters, Lorca’s mother and Victoria’s “best friend” Dottie are all clearly drawn. Each is likeable except for Lorca’s mother who is clearly the villain. Joseph, the only other character, is not so well developed and plays an important, though minor, role.Cutting and food are also main characters. I learned much about the whys of cutting, coming away with a very sympathetic and empathetic view of those who suffer from this scary disease. Food offers the much needed lightness. Iraqi dishes are presented and prepared by Lorca and Victoria. One recipe is given. I would have liked to have others – the descriptions had my mouth watering!Because I feel the book is too long, only 3 of 5 stars.
    • 2/5
      This will be the book of the year, the one I didn't finish… maybe I'll put it aside and try again, probably not, I have 79 others to read. It's not that the writing was bad or the story wasn't developed, it just could not hold my attention.
    • 3/5
      Read this for a book club. It was good to read something out of my comfort zone. As a first novel, I think the author did a pretty good job. I do think she could have developed some of the characters a bit better and it could have used a bit more editing. The book is told in alternating voices between Lorca, a troubled teen who cuts herself and tries so hard to get her mother to love her, and Victoria, whose husband passes away early on in the novel. They connect when Lorca seeks out the recipe for a dish her mother says was her favorite (Victoria and her husband had the restaurant where the dish was served). It was an interesting character study.
    • 4/5
      The parallel stories in this novel made me furious and sad, while still offering hope as the two main characters wrestled with their loneliness and sense of betrayal. Teen Lorca and widow Victoria meet through their love of food and cooking, and find much in common. When they share that Victoria gave up a baby and Lorca's mother was adopted, the plot thickens. Lorca's friend Blot is a wonderful character (too good to be true?) and adds balance for Lorca's despicable mother. The two readers on this audio version did an excellent job.
    • 5/5
      Great writing and food; what’s not to like? I loved this slowly unraveling story about an emotionally wounded teenaged girl, her distant self absorbed mother, and an elderly widow who is drawn into a complex relationship with the teenager. It is an exotic feast of words. The girl, Lorca, tries to find favor with her mother by cooking her favorite foods; wanting to prove that she is worthy of her love. Lorca’s mother is a head chef and creative director at one of New York’s finest restaurants, and when she isn’t working she gives little attention to Lorca. Lorca responds by hurting herself; and that makes her mother so angry and embarrassed that she wants to send her away to a boarding school, but Lorca has a plan to change her mothers mind. The plan is to make a dish called masgouf that her mother once ate, and raved about, at a restaurant that no longer exists. In searching for the recipe she finds Victoria, an Iraqi Jewish immigrant, who teaches cooking lessons, and she hopes that Victoria will be able to teach her how to make masgouf which is a traditional Iraqi grilled fish dish. This novel is beautifully told; even the secondary characters come alive. At the end I had a few questions, but they didn’t take away from the story. I’m definitely giving a 5 star rating for this ARC from Amazon vine. This could also be a YA novel.
    • 4/5
      This novel revolves around two female protagonists who suffer from emotional hunger. Lorca is a fourteen-year-old whose entire life revolves around trying to get her totally self-absorbed mother to love her: “My mother was an enigma, fickle, unknowable, like a giant fish. She loved me in fits and spurts.” Lorca’s father is absent and ineffectual: “My father, warm as he could be, deferred to my mother in everything.” Lorca becomes a self-taught cook in imitation of her mother, a well-respected chef, and when she learns that masgouf, an Iraqi dish, is her mother’s favourite, she comes to a decision: “If I wanted to make my mother happy . . . all I had to do was find the recipe and make the dish.” After some research she finds Victoria, an elderly Jewish-Iraqi immigrant who, after the death of her husband, is persuaded to give lessons in Middle Eastern cooking. Victoria is determined to find her daughter whom she gave up for adoption decades earlier, and as Lorca and Victoria come to know each other, they become convinced that they are connected by more than their love of food and cooking.Both Lorca and Victoria are characters who incite the reader’s sympathy as their stories unfold in alternating first-person chapters. At one point, Victoria comments, “How much of what a person becomes is because of the person she loves.” This is so very true of both protagonists. Lorca is a lost soul who is haunted by her mother’s lack of love for her; she resorts to cutting since she finds self-mutilation to be less painful than her mother’s indifference to her: “I wanted the pain. Wanted it. Wanted it. It was the only consistent thing.” This consistency is a direct contrast to her mother who “was warm in flickers and then very cold.” Just as desperate for a connection is Victoria who has realized too late that she deprived her husband of a child and the opportunity to have “something of his own, something to love” because she didn’t want to share him with anyone, even a child: “I’d wanted to be enough. When I wasn’t, I shunned any possible replacement.” In her journey of self-discovery, she comes to terms with her jealous, insecure love and her selfish “heart of mud” and also learns to forgive others and herself.Because of the love missing in their lives, it is understandable why Lorca and Victoria are drawn to each other; each satisfies a need in the other. Whether the two share a closer relationship is a significant question which provides considerable suspense. The reader will find him/herself alternating between accepting and rejecting the conclusions the two reach. In the end, will their dreams be realized? Will there be apricots tomorrow?The writing is sumptuous. Since food and cooking are so integral to the story, it is only appropriate that the book be full of food imagery. “[H]er perfect eyebrows . . . were like the feathery fins of her famous pan-roasted bass” and “Her hands were heads of garlic” and “It was so dark that it looked like a lava-cake spill” are just three of the many examples. These comparisons are original and visually effective. This being said, the novel is not perfect. Can a teenager who is self-taught be so knowledgeable about food and cooking techniques? Can a woman really be so totally unaware of what transpired at the birth of her child? Would a nineteen-year-old young man befriend a girl five years his junior? There are also some coincidences that jar. For example, Lorca’s dropping of a photograph in Victoria’s home seems a stretch. Reading this novel of love and loss and finding one’s family is like enjoying a feast of several courses. Not everything may be totally to one’s liking but at the end one will be satisfied and will look forward to future offerings.Note: I received a pre-release copy of the book from the publisher via NetGalley.