Rules for Visiting: A Novel

Product Description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER!NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: O Magazine * Good Housekeeping * Real Simple * Vulture * Chicago Tribune NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE SUMMER BY: “The Today Show” * “Good Morning America” * Wall Street Journal * San Francisco Chronicle * Southern Living An INDIE NEXT LIST PickShortlisted for the 2020 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize Long-listed for the 2020 Tournament of Books”Fun, hilarious, and extremely touching.”—NPRDry, witty, and unapologetic, May Attaway loves literature and her work as a botanist for the university in her hometown. More at home with plants than people, May begins to suspect she isn’t very good at friendship and wonders if it’s possible to improve with practice. Granted some leave from her job, she sets out on a journey to spend time with four long-neglected friends.

Smart, funny, and full of compassion, Rules for Visiting is the story of a search for friendship in the digital age, a singular look at the way we stay in touch. While May travels, she studies her friends’ lives and begins to confront the pain of her own.

With simplicity and honesty, Jessica Francis Kane has crafted an exquisite story about a woman trying to find a new way to be in the world. This nourishing book, with its beautiful contemplation of travel, trees, family, and friendship, is the perfect antidote to our chaotic times.

Review

“When 40-year-old gardener May receives a surprise windfall of one month of vacation from the university where she works, she decides to visit four old friends, each one from different periods of her life. Through this initially simple and irresistible starting point, Jessica Francis Kane investigates the most universal mysteries of all.”
—Isaac Fitzgerald, Today
 
“This beautiful novel tackles loneliness in the digital age and the lost art of visiting. Introvert May Attaway is granted some unexpected time off as a university gardener and is inspired to reconnect with four once-close friends. May chooses to bypass her friends’ perfectly cultivated online lives to instead meet them IRL. Gives a whole new meaning to Instagram vs. reality.”
—Good Morning America

“This spirit-warming saga, an antidote to the uncivil, is a novel to be read again and again, whenever one needs a reminder to seize the day…Treat yourself to Jessica Francis Kane’s novel 
Rules for Visiting, an elixir in book form about a quest for friendship that could have been written by Jane Austen’s great great-great-granddaughter.”—
O Magazine

“Crackles with wit”—
The New York Times

 
“Full of witticisms and broader life lessons, 
Rules for Visiting will stay with readers.”
—Elizabeth Sile, Real Simple

“Kane’s understated meditation on loneliness in the digital age [is] just the right kind of narrative, an antidote for our distracted days.”—
Hillary Kelly, Vulture

“A witty, sometimes melancholy and altogether lovely meditation on love, loss, friendship—and botany.”—
Wall Street Journal 

“Fun, hilarious, and extremely touching… its coming out right around Mother’s Day is no coincidence… I loved May as a character…  she doesn’t need me to like her, though. She has her plants, her father, some new or revitalized friendships, and her own sharp and witty mind to keep her company. She is no Grendel — only a deeply alive human.”—
Ilana Masad, NPR“At 40, May Attaway, the protagonist, finds herself alone and feeling profoundly disconnected from her life and from herself. When she receives an unexpected gift of time off, she seizes the opportunity to visit four old friends. May is smart, funny and more than a little prickly. Readers will love her and find her story both moving and reassuring.”
—Michael Barnard, San Francisco Chronicle “Quietly powerful”
—The Chicago Tribune  

“Impeccably written and surprisingly moving…May’s journey is lovely and deeply affecting.”—
Publisher’s Weekly

“Kane’s delightful tale celebrates friendship, family, love, joy in the ordinary, fin