What the Family Needed Hardback - 2013

"Remarkable ... at once magical and very normal, a wishful fantasy about the strength it can take to love one's family members well." A –Entertainment Weekly

“I loved this book… What I thought was so wonderful and moving about this book is, on the one hand, it’s filled with really careful observation of quotidian details—it feels so real—and then there are these twists… This is really what a great storyteller does.” –Bill Goldstein, “Bill’s Books,” NBC New York

“Brilliant, unexpected, wide-ranging and deeply moving, the story of one family's extraordinary—and sometimes otherworldly— negotiation of the very real hazards of life.”  –Maile Meloy, author of Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

“Steven Amsterdam is a superhero and his power is to create stunningly crafted, heartbreaking stories that are as fun as they are brilliant. In this story of a ‘super family,’ the greatest ability on display is Amsterdam's own control of story, which outshines the fantastic by being even more so.” –Mat Johnson, author of Pym

"There are moments when the writing's simplicity becomes its own kind of superpower… the book soars." –Publishers Weekly

“Pulses with hope… It's a tantalizing novel, one that’s both sharp and touching, and Steven Amsterdam is fast becoming one of our most interesting writers.” –The Canberra Times 

"A wonderful novel: imaginative, intelligent, empathetic. It's like a cross between The Corrections and The Slap, except without any of the gloom or rage and with the addition of something that may or may not be either a form of magic realism or simply that old staple of the literary art, metaphor.” –Sydney Morning Herald 

"Surreal and fantastic… [Amsterdam] develops his own kind of reality that has more than a tinge of fantasy." –Kirkus

PRAISE FOR THINGS WE DIDN'T SEE COMING

“Breathtakingly strange… the kind of book that can inspire us to think differently about the world and entertain us at the same time.” –Washington Post 

“Feels like a genuine discovery… Timely and unexpectedly moving.” –The Daily Beast 

“Brilliant… Thoughtful, intelligent, savvy… full of horror and hope and compels you to think.”  –Raleigh News & Observer