Emigrating alone from Paris to New York after World War II, a young girl Gazala befriends two spirited sisters, Anne and Alma. When Gazala's beloved brother Samir joins her in Manhattan, this inseparable foursome becomes the beating heart of an untraditional, multigenerational family.

The decades are marked by erupting passions within everyday life. Gazala and Samir make a home together, Alma loses a baby, Anne leaves her husband for his sister and her restless daughter grows up to raise a child on her own. The four friends stand by one another through it all, steadfastly unapologetic about their authentic desires and the unorthodox family they have created.

Compassionate and full of warmth and humour, I'll Be Right Here embraces the complexity and richness of humanity and the mysterious ways we evolve as we love - and the ways we hope to be loved in return.

"I read this stunning novel in a single sitting and then moped around for days because I missed the characters so much. Amy Bloom is at the height of her powers in this epic tale of how we shape the lives of those around us in ways both ordinary and extraordinary, and how they shape ours in return."-J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author of The Cliffs


"Once again, Amy Bloom shines her brilliant attention on families bound by love, history. Kin-born and chosen-are the center of this stirring take. Told with humor and heart, I'll Be Right Here reminds us of the sweet profundity of human connection."-Tayari Jones, New York Times bestselling author of An American Marriage

Author of three New York Times best-sellers and three collections of short stories, a children's book and a ground-breaking collection of essays. Bloom has been a nominee for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and numerous anthologies here and abroad. She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, O Magazine and Vogue, among many other publications, and has won a National Magazine Award for Fiction. Her work has been translated into fifteen languages.

She has written many pilot scripts, for cable and network, and she created, wrote and ran the excellent, short-lived series State of Mind, starring Lili Taylor. She is now Wesleyan University's Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing.