The Rooms Are Filled

A Novel

by Jessica Vealitzek

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.

Buy on Amazon Buy on BN.com Buy on Bookshop.org

*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.

Pub Date Apr 22 2014 | Archive Date May 06 2014

Description

The Rooms Are Filled is the moving, 1983 coming-of-age story of two outcasts brought together by circumstance: a Minnesota farm boy transplanted to suburban Chicago after his father dies, and his teacher, a closeted young woman starting over after a failed attempt to live openly. Readers will root for these two as they navigate their new lives, as they attempt to change to become who they are.

Advance Praise

“Michael, a boy rejected by his schoolmates, and Julia, a schoolteacher confused about her sexual identity, form a lovely, sympathetic bond in Jessica Null Vealitzek’s fine first novel. The Rooms Are Filled is the story of their struggle to survive in a suburban world full of prejudice and hostility, set against the backdrop of a natural world, which we, like Michael, have lost but still can learn from. Vealitzek writes from the heart. I read this tale of anguish, and of triumph, from cover to cover without stopping. You will too.”
—Stephen Wetta, author of If Jack’s in Love

“The Rooms Are Filled is a tender novel about the beauty and sadness of those simply learning to live out loud. An ode to truth, the departed who are never truly gone, and the resilient human heart.”
—Susan Henderson, author of Up from the Blue

“As you read about the seemingly quiet, Midwestern lives of the people of The Rooms Are Filled, you will suddenly realize that you desperately want them to get everything they’re hoping for.”
—John Warner, Chicago Tribune columnist and author of The Funny Man