Daisy and Henry Lewis have been married for twenty years. They dine out on sushi, battle for parking places in Harvard Square, and have long served as a host family for Harvard's international students. But everything changes: Cambridge, families, and husbands. Now, in this irreverent, on-the-mark look at modern relationships, forty-something Daisy is about to question the causes and effects of love.... Daisy Lewis still wears jeans and sneakers, even though her son is a Harvard freshman. His departure for college less than a mile away turns the empty nest into a gaping hole. Henry, her husband, starts calling himself Henri and sprinkling his conversation with au contraire and mais oui. As for l'amour? Their once rumpled sheets are flat and cold. Daisy should have seen "it" coming. In a dispirited dive of a Japanese restaurant, Henry drops the news like a bit of rice off his chopstick: Their marriage is over. Kaput. Fini. Their model host family is anything but.
Then, under surprising circumstances, Daisy meets Truman Wolfe, a Harvard parasitologist. Gradually, she starts to feel grounded again... until another international student lands on her doorstep and sets things ricocheting once more. Soon the relationships between Truman and Daisy, her son, his daughter, and their extended Harvard community are splitting apart and coming together in all sorts of symbiotic combinations that will challenge everything they believe about the meaning of family and the meaning of love.
With the same wickedly funny eye that won over readers in Mail, Mameve Medwed delivers another irresistible novel and establishes her place as a master of both wit and heart and a striking chronicler of how we live now.
A cuttingly funny yet heartwarming tale full of hilarious twists and practical wisdom."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY "Shamelessly charming. Host Family is more ambitious than Medwed's first, Mail. It's funnier too."
