Customer Reviews

Another Marvelous Thing

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was a fan of Laurie Colwin's writing from Gourmet Magazine. When I found out she also wrote fiction, I rushed to find some. This was the first I came across, and let me assure you it is a wonderful book, and a marvelous introduction to a unique writer. She is a supremely adult writer, both in her subjects and the way she thinks and speaks to us about them. The nearest comparison I can make is Raymond Carver, but where Carver was spare and dark, she is loquacious and light. To read her work is to come to know that ferociously brilliant best friend who always brought out the best in you when the two of you would sit up late, talking out all the important stuff. Her writing creates such a personal bond that on hearing of her far-too-premature death, the first knife that goes through you is for her daughter and husband, the second for the voice that the world must go on without.

If I had known what this book was going to be about, I would have dropped it like a hot potato. Sounds like Chick Lit! Ewww!!! But Ms. Colwin is a truly gifted writer, and I found myself caring about her characters, and actually empathizing with them. Sort of a tough sell when they are having an adulterous affair. Life is messy and complicated and beautiful and wonderous--all at once. She packs a lot in this short book. I'm sorry she is no longer with us, giving us more great stories.

This is the first Laurie Colwin I've read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I agree with another reviewer that the stories overlap but, I think, when it does it is always subtly different and reveals the characters a little more deeply. Two married people meet at a social gathering, quickly discover they are incompatibly different, and begin a two year affair anyway. Billy, the young woman, is about as introverted as a person can be, keeping all her feelings deep inside and spurning any kind of social life. Francis, the older man, is social, extroverted and very open with his feelings for Billy and anything else. If this interests you, then you should pick up this great little book :)

This novel consists of six interconnected tales of two lovers - - Billie and Francis. Both are affluent and educated. Life is easy and genteel for both of them. Billie is a young, somewhat unkempt and non-glamorous college professor married to her childhood sweetheart, an economist. Francis is a dapper banker, married to a fashionable decorator. Their affair is examined from various vantage points, during and after its initiation.

The book is well-crafted but the context is conceptually mundane.

I have enjoyed Laurie Colwin for years, and I was deeply saddened by her death. However, this particular book was a disappointment for me. The story is very repetitive, repeating events and thoroughly re-describing events that were thoroughly described in earlier chapters. The writing style and complexity compares well to a high-school essay. I liked that it was a short and quick read, but if this will be your first Colwin novel, I highly recommend starting with a different one from her collection.

Laurie Colwin should not be forgotten. Her untimely death left us all saddened and filled with loss. Her fiction was magic and the stories she wrote for "Gourmet" magazine were timeless and yet untradtional. She was unique. She had a special glow. She had a special "know". She experienced certain things, and we can rationalize our own lives through her many books and writings. Read just one of her books, and then say a prayer for her soul.