We Are the Brennans

Tracey Lange’s novel We Are the Brennans is a family drama published in 2021 by Celadon Books. The novel focuses on the loving but flawed Brennan family, whose interpersonal dramas and dark family secrets come out after the only daughter Sunday Brennan gets into a drunk-driving accident in Los Angeles and returns to her family home in West Manor, New York, at her brother’s request. The novel tackles several themes, including The Importance of Family Unity, The Negative Impact of Secrets and Lies, and Redemption and Forgiveness as a Path to Healing. Lange’s upbringing as an Irish American growing up in New York and her Irish immigrant parents’ stories inspired her novel’s New York setting and tight-knit Irish American family.

This study guide uses the 2021 hardcover print edition.

Content Warning: This novel contains drunk driving and themes of trauma and pregnancy loss. It also includes a couple of uses of an ableist slur and a disrespectful term (which this study guide will not include) against an intellectually disabled character.

Plot Summary

Sunday Brennan lives a quiet, lonely life in Los Angeles after leaving New York five years prior.