I’ll Be Right Here

Bloom returns to fiction after her bestselling memoir In Love (which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist) with the decades-spanning story of four friends in New England who spin in and out of each other’s lives over the years. The novel opens during World War II, when young Gazala and her brother Samir—orphaned Algerian immigrants living in poverty in France—must do whatever it takes to survive. Forced to split up, they each make their way independently to New York City after the war and ultimately reunite. While in New York, Gazala meets a pair of sisters named Anne and Alma and forges a lifelong bond with them. Relationships are truly at the heart of this slim novel, and readers are rewarded with Bloom’s signature empathetic writing style as she explores the many ways that there are to love and care for other people. As the novel slips back and forth in time, narrated from the perspectives of each of the main characters, readers will find themselves continually surprised and moved by the choices they make, the secrets they keep, and how they show up for one another.