Dandelion in Concrete. Novel

July 14, 2003: Diploma in hand, Ellen leaves her parents' working-class apartment - and steps into a world where people eat with five forks and let wine "breathe." Every step of her rise, every new word, every polished vowel takes her further from the kitchen with the oilcloth table, from her father's scarred hands, from the language she grew up speaking. "Dandelion in Concrete" tells the story of a family across three generations in vivid, intimate snapshots - spanning from 2003 into the 2050s: Ellen, the first in her family to go to university; her son Dennis, who continues her path; and Leyla, who carries it further still.
A novel about upward educational mobility and its price, about the distance that opens up when you're expected to "do better" - and about how the dandelion may grow through concrete, but never forgets where it came from. Tender, unsparingly precise, and written with remarkable linguistic control, Ellen Bruhns captures the quiet violence of social mobility - and what is lost in arriving.