{"product_id":"commitment-9780593319277b","title":"Commitment","description":"\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNEW YORKER \u003c\/i\u003eAND \u003ci\u003eLOS ANGELES TIMES \u003c\/i\u003eBEST BOOK OF THE YEAR \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eA masterful and engrossing novel about a single mother’s collapse and the fate of her family after she enters a California state hospital in the 1970s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eWhen Diane Aziz drives her oldest son, Walter, from Los Angeles to college at UC Berkeley, it will be her last parental act before falling into a deep depression. A single mother who maintains a wishful belief that her children can attain all the things she hasn’t, she’s worked hard to secure their future in caste-driven 1980s Los Angeles, gaining them illegal entry to an affluent public school. When she enters a state hospital, her closest friend tries to keep the children safe and their mother’s dreams for them alive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt Berkeley, Walter discovers a passion for architecture just as he realizes his life as a student may need to end for lack of funds. Back home in LA, his sister, Lina, who works in an ice-cream parlor while her wealthy classmates are preparing for Ivy league schools, wages a high stakes gamble to go there with them. And Donny, the little brother everybody loves, begins to hide in plain sight, coding, gaming, and drifting towards a life on the beach, where he falls into an escalating relationship with drugs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMoving from Berkeley and Los Angeles to New York and back again, this is a story about one family trying to navigate the crisis of their lives, a crisis many know first-hand in their own families or in those of their neighbors. A resonant novel about family and duty and the attendant struggles that come when a parent falls ill, \u003ci\u003eCommitment\u003c\/i\u003e honors the spirit of fragile, imperfect mothers and the under-chronicled significance of friends, in determining the lives of our children left on their own. With \u003ci\u003eCommitment\u003c\/i\u003e, Mona Simpson, one of the foremost chroniclers of the American family in our time, has written her most important and unforgettable novel.\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Bargain","offer_id":42870296608848,"sku":"9780593319277B","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0592\/8173\/5760\/files\/9780593319277-l.jpg?v=1785890700","url":"https:\/\/bookoutlet.com\/products\/commitment-9780593319277b","provider":"Book Outlet","version":"1.0","type":"link"}