“Germans,” Louise said, her voice muffled by the handkerchief.
“What’s that, now?” the cabbie asked.
“Mine will be fighting the Nazis!” she wailed.
“Well, I meant them, too!” the cabbie said. “Germans, Italians, Japanese. What d’ya think any of them scoundrels can do against our fine boys?” He looked into the rearview mirror at the girls, and Kitty saw the worry in his blue eyes, the doubt. It came to her to say, “My boyfriend will be fighting the Japs.” But it didn’t seem to make much difference, really. She and Louise stopped crying, but they held hands the rest of the way home.
ELIZABETH BERG is the author of fifteen novels, including the New York Times bestsellers The Art of Mending, Say When, True to Form, Never Change, and Open House, which was an Oprah’s Book Club selection in 2000. Durable Goods and Joy School were selected as ALA Best Books of the Year, and Talk Before Sleep was short-listed for the ABBY Award in 1996. The winner of the 1997 New England Booksellers Award for her work, she is also the author of a nonfiction work, Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True. She lives in Chicago.
Also by Elizabeth Berg
The Handmaid and the Carpenter
The Year of Pleasures
The Art of Mending
Say When
True to Form
Ordinary Life: Stories
Never Change
Open House
Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True
Until the Real Thing Comes Along
What We Keep
Joy School
The Pull of the Moon
Range of Motion
Talk Before Sleep
Durable Goods
Family Traditions
Praise for
We Are All Welcome Here
“Valuable lessons about love, honor and the real meaning of family…[a] charming tale of a girl growing to realize just how much she is her mother’s daughter.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“[Berg’s] inner poetry and eloquence never falter…. She leaves us just enough room to draw from our own well of tears.”
—The Boston Globe
“Put away your bookmarks. You won’t need them. We Are All Welcome Here grabs you on page 1 and never lets go.”
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“Deftly told, this tale turns on a painful, liberating transition that allows each character to come wholly and appealingly alive on the page.”
—People (starred review)
“[Berg] handles her material well…. In the charming and idealistic world Berg creates, there’s room for a little magic.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Paige, Diana and Peacie are the kind of characters you’d like to have over for sweet tea and a glide on the porch swing.”
—USA Today
“Welcome not only highlights the extraordinary power that a mother—paralyzed or not—has over her daughter, but offers a unique perspective on polio’s cruel legacy.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Berg finely draws all the characters in this story of acceptance, love, sacrifice and generosity of heart. It’s the story of the struggle for freedom and the ties that bind. And, if the end seems like a fairy-tale ending, well that’s just fine.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
—The Charlotte Observer
“Berg’s latest novel of ordinary women made extraordinary by a steely nobility covers a lot of territory…and her signature gifts for depicting strong women and writing pointed dialog are as acute as ever.”
—Library Journal
“[A] carefully calibrated domestic drama.”
—Publishers Weekly
“The prolific Berg pulls out all the stops in this family story…. There’s a lot of bang for the buck here.”
—Booklist
“[Berg’s] work of fiction, We Are All Welcome Here, is as compelling as the truth…. [A] vivid portrait of a mother-daughter relationship.”
—The Columbus Dispatch
“A quietly keyed story reminiscent in places of To Kill a Mockingbird.”
—BookPage
“It couldn’t be sweeter.”
—Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Elizabeth Berg
Reading group guide copyright © 2007 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
READER’S CIRCLE and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2006.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to RF Entertainment Inc. for permission to reprint an excerpt from the song “The Mercy of the Fallen” by Dar Williams from the album entitled Beauty and the Rain, copyright © 2002 by Burning Field Music. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Berg, Elizabeth.
We are all welcome here: a novel / Elizabeth Berg
p. cm.
1. Poliomyelitis—Patients—Fiction. 2. Civil rights movements—
Fiction. 3. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 4. African Americans—
Fiction. 5. Race relations—Fiction. 6. Tupelo (Miss.)—Fiction.
7. Caregivers—Fiction. 8. Girls—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.E6996W4 2006
813'.54—dc22 2005048956
Reader’s Circle website address: www.thereaderscircle.com
eISBN: 978-0-345-50006-9
v3.0