The Anxiety of Everyday Objects [Paperback]

Aurelie Sheehan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 24, 2004

In her absorbing debut novel, Sheehan’s depiction of the working girl’s life in the big city is as charming as it is inspiring. Single, not yet thirty, and devoted companion to her dignified cat, Fruit Bat, Winona Bartlett is a secretary at a New York City law firm. Though she finds a certain security in the rituals of her demandingly undemanding job, Winona’s real ambition is to be a filmmaker. And her romantic life is a mess. When a new lawyer—a blind woman named Sandy Spires—joins the firm and challenges Winona to trust her own creative ideas, Winona is encouraged to try to be more than just a “non-filmmaking filmmaker.” But it eventually becomes clear that the enigmatic Sandy isn’t who she said she is. After her real motives are uncovered, Winona begins to understand what it means to take risks in life and in love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The languors of office life and frustrated dreams are explored in this off-beat first novel by Sheehan (after the short story collection Jack Kerouac Is Pregnant). Winona Bartlett, a 29-year-old would-be filmmaker as well as secretary, is single, lives in a studio apartment with her cat, works for a Manhattan law firm and is dating a man she refers to as "Jeremy the Sincere." Although she is not in love with him, or any part of her life for that matter, she is going through the motions. Promoted from secretary to office manager, she displays appropriate gratitude even if it is a step in the opposite direction of her dream. The promotion, a cash bonus and a handful of perks all seem to come as fringe benefits of her friendship with the firm's newest lawyer, an elegantly beautiful and mysterious blind woman, Sandy Spires. Despite Winona's vague uneasiness about Sandy's overtures and unorthodox requests, she simply goes along. After all, the extra money makes it possible to buy a camera and begin work on her film, tentatively titled The Anxiety of Everyday Objects which is about a woman, well, a lot like Winona. A friendship with Rex, an upstanding young attorney at the firm, finally rouses her conscience and leads her to probe more closely into irregularities at work. The ensuing plot twists present opportunities for the stubbornly naïve heroine to discover just how much integrity she can muster. Sheehan's self-consciously choppy prose and whimsical asides give the novel a halting rhythm, but readers who persevere will find the surprise ending tartly satisfying.
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From Booklist

Sheehan's debut novel is set at the law firm of Grecko Mauster Crill, where Winona Bartlett toils as a secretary. She has the potential to be much more and, indeed, aspires to be a filmmaker. Her would-be film, entitled The Anxiety of Everyday Objects, centers on the theme of how people misreading something as simple as a street sign can gain significant insight into their lives. The only one who seems to see Winona's potential (other than Rex, the cute lawyer who has a crush on her) is the firm's new associate, Sandy Spires, who has been hired in conjunction with a case involving the beauty makeover consulting firm Lisa Box. Sandy--beautiful, glamorous, and blind--befriends Winona, treating her to a day at a spa and introducing her to a filmmaker. But as Winona becomes interested in Sandy as a subject for her film, she gradually realizes Sandy may be as manipulative as she is charming. A quirky, introspective novel about a creative woman finding her footing in a very corporate world. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); 3rd edition (February 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142003700
• ISBN-13: 978-0142003701
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,282,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Aurelie Sheehan is the author of two novels, History Lesson for Girls and The Anxiety of Everyday Objects, as well as a short story collection, Jack Kerouac Is Pregnant. She teaches fiction and directs the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect tempo, cogent characters, magnificently well written, March 29, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Anxiety of Everyday Objects (Paperback)

This novel reads more smoothly, with better developed characters, and more intriguing plot and dilemmas than any other novel I've read from this genre, first novel or not. Thousands of women have walked (and limped) in Winona's shoes, but their tales are rarely told, and certainly never told with this much intellect, spice and sincerity.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "One upon a time there was a blind girl; then she was gone", May 17, 2004

By 

M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Anxiety of Everyday Objects (Paperback)

With an astute eye for office politics, and a knack for the metaphysical, Sheehan has written a beguiling and quite idiosyncratic story of what it takes to survive as a working girl in New York. The narrative offers us a savvy glimpse into the life of Winona Bartlett, a twenty-something filmmaker, who is passing the time, and paying rent, by working as a secretary in the swanky and ritzy Manhattan law firm of Greko Mauster Crill, Where she has, at least, "an identity, the sanctity of identity in her normal work." When Sandy Spires, a blind, ambitious and devastatingly beautiful lawyer joins the firm, Winona is inexplicably drawn to her. Sandy befriends Winona, promotes her to office manager, and showers her with attention and affection. But Sandy has a secret, and Winona through her own naïve ambition, is unwittingly drawn into Sandy's clandestine activities.

Out of the office, Winona has to suffer her flighty and self obsessed sister Liz, who is constantly asking her to house sit, "do her bidding," and look after her dog Sniffles. She is also shielding attention from Rex, a cute young hotshot lawyer, who wants to "date" her while coping with her current boyfriend Jeremy, who wants her to go to a couple's conference for counseling. After she decides to break up with Jeremy, Sylvester, a savvy, older continental filmmaker, courts her with the promise to help her break into the industry. The plot twists and turns and Winona finds herself getting caught up in all sorts of experiences as she searches for integrity and tries to navigate through the frustrations of life.

Winona's film is going to be called The Anxiety of Everyday Objects and she wants the heroine of her film to be going about her business, seeing things, but things that are "magnified, imagined, or skewed - an outburst of her own anxiety." Is there a difference between what you see and what you hear, or are they incomparable as "an aria to a sun collapsing over a French Hill?" How we perceive each other, and what we look for in a person's character is at the heart of this delectably lively and spirited novel. Perhaps in the end, it isn't absolutely clear whether it is sight or blindness that produces happiness. Fans of "chic lit" are going to appreciate this work, along with anyone who has ever found themselves in the middle of the manipulations, and scheming affairs of office life. Mike Leonard May 04.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent tension: Interesting and Substantive, April 17, 2004

By 

E. Kendall - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Anxiety of Everyday Objects (Paperback)

This book is ambitious, and though it doesn't quite live up to its own expectations, it's a great read.

Both a character sketch and a workplace mystery, *Anxiety* reminds you how dangerous it can be to take people at face value. Manipulation and office politics are treated with gravity and wit. An excellent and impressive first novel. I will definitely buy Sheehan's next book.