Family trauma begets family trauma.
The Best We Could Hope For by Nicola Kraus is a haunting and layered exploration of family, legacy, and emotional debris passed from generation to generation. It follows the story of two sisters, Jayne and Bunny Linden, and the children entangled in their wake.
Jayne is in college when her younger sister, Bunny, vanishes from their troubled childhood home. Years pass in near silence, until Bunny reappears unannounced, with three children in tow, each with a different father from her drifting life across the U.S. and Mexico. Recognizing that she can’t be the mother her kids need, Bunny abandons them, leaving Jayne and her husband Rodger to step in.
Jayne and Rodger built the kind of home Bunny never could, one filled with warmth, stability, and care. When they have their own daughter, Linden, life feels nearly idyllic. But just as suddenly as she left, Bunny returns a decade later, and her reappearance is the beginning of the end. What follows is a cascade of unraveling: a painful divorce, fractured relationships, and a family splintered beyond repair.
As the children grow into adulthood, the ghosts of their upbringing begin to surface in unexpected ways. What happened in their childhood? What parts were shaped by pain, and what by perception?
Kraus, best known for The Nanny Diaries, delivers something entirely different here—a dark, immersive narrative about generational trauma and the emotional sleight-of-hand families can play. While stories of inherited pain are nothing new, what sets this novel apart is its masterful pacing and its refusal to offer simple answers. The truth is always out of reach, distorted by time, memory, and denial.
The narrative leaps across time and space precisely, each moment rich with sensory and emotional detail, particularly for those familiar with New York. The opening chapter, with Lin in a Brooklyn shop, is so vivid I could swear I’ve been there, overpaying for sage to cleanse a room that held too much.
This isn’t a light, wine-and-book-club kind of read. It’s a spiderweb of hurt and history, showing how every thread connects and entangles each family member.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this poignant novel.