Joy School

Title: Joy School
Author: Elizabeth Berg
ISBN: 9780679449430
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1997
Binding: Hardcover
Language: English
Edition: First Edition
Number of Pages: 208
Section: Fiction | Literary
Publisher Description: Katie has relocated to Missouri with her distant and occasionally abusive father. Her much-loved mother is dead; her new school is unaccepting of her; and her only friends fall far short of ideal companions. An accident leads Katie to meet Jimmy, handsome, far older than she, and married besides, with whom she falls in love. Joy School is a story about something nearly all of us have experienced: soaring happiness at feeling real love, the deep pain of it being unrequited, the stubbornness of hope that will not let us let go. Joy School is infused with the recognition that love can come in many different forms and offer many different things. And that sometimes the things that hurt us most teach us the best lessons; it seems we must all move through sorrow in order to fully understand joy.

Andre Dubus said about Durable Goods, "Elizabeth Berg writes with humor and a big heart about resilience, loneliness, love and hope. And the transcendence that redeems". The same will be said of Joy School, one of Berg's very best.