Anna Quindlen
Category: Fiction
Synopsis: Sixty-year-old
divorcee, Rebecca Winter, moves from the city to the country. Just how much
will her life change?
Date finished: 24
September 2014
Rating: ****
Comments:
I’ve long enjoyed Anna Quindlen’s nonfiction. Her essay
collections, her book on reading, her latest woman-of-a-certain-age memoir,
I’ve enjoyed them all. I’ve also read one (two?) of her novels, and I was
sorely disappointed. But other bloggers read Still
Life with Bread Crumbs earlier this year and praised it so highly, I had to
check it out.
I was not disappointed. The plot, best described as
woman-of-a-certain-age-romance (I see a theme developing in Quindlen’s writing
lately), as well as the characters, were light and breezy. It’s a quiet slice
of life novel, complete with a dislocated artist, an all-around good guy, and
some other stock characters. There’s nothing really striking in the plot or
characters arena. But the writing is where it’s at for this novel. I wrote down
many whole passages in which Quindlen absolutely nails the human condition to
the wall. Her writerly turn of phrase is a special gift. The writing kept me
reading; the story was secondary.
A couple of my favorite passages:
They were photographs that you had to explain, which meant
they were a failure. (page 35)
Bebe Winter had never relaxed into anything, especially
motherhood. (page 53)
It would make sense that the women who lived there thought
he was her dog, given her mental state; it made sense that [the dog] was
agnostic about the whole thing, given his history. (page 63)
Would you recommend
this to a friend?
Yes.
You might also enjoy:
Lots of Candles,
Plenty of Cake
That sounds like a good read! I will check that one out.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good book. Short. Happy ending. Good writing. I read a lot of heavy nonfiction, so this was a refreshing change.
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