Table Of ContentMona Simpson’s
ANYWHERE BUT HERE
“Mona Simpson is both a novelist and a poet, and her talents are prodigious.”
—Le Anne Schreiber, The New York Times Book Review
“Mona Simpson has a remarkable gift for transforming the homely cadences of plain American
speech into something like poetry … a stunning debut.”
—John Ashbery
“A raw, amazing, heart-breaking portrayal of a sort that hasn’t turned up in anything else I’ve
read.”
—Alice Munro
“An amazing novel. Mona Simpson joins those female literary stars—Colette, Willa Cather—
whose voices are uniquely recognizable, always their own.”
—Gail Lumet Buckley, Vogue
“Simpson has already earned a place beside domestic pioneers like Anne Tyler and Alice Munro.
She has not only shaken the family tree, she has plucked it from its soil to expose its tangled
system of roots.”
—Sven Birkerts, Chicago Tribune
“Anywhere But Here is a family affair made real, a journey into the tortured heart of the American
Dream. Simpsons novel is an evocative portrait of a mother who is the lonely, hapless monster in
all of us, mistaking fame for success, bondage for love, and the daughter who rejects her,
becomes her, loves her, survives her.”
—Jayne Anne Phillips
“It has all the bite and poignance of a life unfolding … a moving, extraordinary achievement.”
—Gail Caldwell, Boston Globe
“There have been many novels about mothers and daughters … but Simpson has found a very
special, achingly real, yet often funny way of portraying such a relationship that speaks directly
to our times…. We are in the presence of a major new literary talent.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“A brilliant novel… Anywhere But Here is a book about two women, but Simpson makes them
seem like the world.”
—Laurie Stone, Village Voice
“The voices in Anywhere But Here have beauty, vitality, and sadness. They tell of arrivals and
departures in reminding, confiding tones that Mona Simpson owns entirely. This book is
necessary.”
—Mary Robison
“Crafted with the assurance and virtuosity of a seasoned storyteller.”
—Wall Street Journal
“A rich, deeply moving novel.”
—People
“Simpson’s prose is at once effortlessly casual in tone and also an instrument of genuine
subtlety…. Her novel takes your breath away.”
—Los Angeles Herald Examiner
Books by Mona Simpson
Anywhere But Here
The Lost Father
Vintage Contemporaries Edition, January 1992
Copyright © 1986 by Mona Simpson
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in
the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random
House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published, in hardcover, by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
in 1986.
Some stories in this work were originally published in the following publications: North American
Review and The Paris Review. “What My Mother Knew” was originally published in Mademoiselle.
“Approximations” and “Lonnie Tishman” were originally published in Ploughshares.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Simpson, Mona.
Anywhere but here.
(Vintage contemporaries)
I. Title.
PS3569.I5117A8 1988 813′. 54 91-50230
eISBN: 978-0-30776536-9
The author wishes to thank the Corporation of Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, VCCA, the
Transatlantic Henfield Foundation, The Beard’s Fund, the Kellogg Foundation, and The Paris
Review for their support during the writing of this book. Also, the author would like to thank
Allan Gurganus, Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Asahina, Robert Cohen, Lionel Shriver, and George
Plimpton for multiple and generous readings.
v3.1
For Joanne,
our mother,
and
my brother Steve
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by this Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
PART ONE: ANN
1 Anywhere
2 Bel Air Hotel
3 The House on Carriage Court
PART TWO: LILLIAN
4 The Age of the Year
PART THREE: ANN
5 South of Wilshire
6 Las Vegas, Disneyland, Egypt
7 A Shopping Center Somewhere in the Valley
8 A Doctor’s Apartment
PART FOUR: CAROL
9 Happiness and Accidents
PART FIVE: ANN
10 Home
11 Lime Kiln Road
12 A Backhouse on North Palm Drive
13 A Doctor’s Office
PART SIX: CAROL
14 The Stone and the Heart
PART SEVEN: ANN
15 A New Car
PART EIGHT: CAROL
16 A Lot of People’s Secret
PART NINE: ADELE
17 The Course of Miracles
There are three wants which can never be satisfied; that of the rich wanting
more, that of the sick, wanting something different, and that of the traveler,
who says, “anywhere but here.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Description:Anywhere But Here is a moving, often comic portrait of wise child Ann August and her mother, Adele, a larger-than-life American dreamer. As they travel through the landscape of their often conflicting ambitions, Ann and Adele bring to life a novel that is a brilliant exploration of the perennial urg
