Any Place I Hang My Hat: A Novel [Hardcover]

Susan Isaacs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2004

No matter which side of the nature/nurture debate you're on, Amy Lincoln's prospects do not look good. Her mother abandoned her when she was ten months old (just a couple of months after Amy's father went off to serve his first prison term), leaving her in the care of Grandma Lil, who shoplifts dinner on the way home from her job as a leg waxer to the rich and refined.

When Amy is fourteen, she gets a scholarship to a New England boarding school -- her exposure to the moneyed class. After Harvard and the Columbia School of Journalism, Amy becomes a political reporter for the prestigious weekly In Depth. While covering a political fund-raiser, Amy meets a college student who claims to be the son of one of the presidential candidates. It's precisely the sort of story that In Depth wouldn't deign to cover, but the idea of tracking down a lost parent and demanding recognition intrigues Amy. As she begins a search of her own past as well as the candidate's, she discovers a new and unimpeachable grandmother and a mother who is much more than she bargained for. Most important, she finally comes to understand the stuff she's made of and finds the perfect place to hang her hat in the world.

Bold, insightful, witty, and exhilarating, Any Place I Hang My Hat is a novel about one extraordinary young woman looking for a place to belong -- by one of the most compelling and beloved voices in contemporary fiction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A political reporter in her late 20s goes in search of the mother who abandoned her when she was a baby in this jaunty if rather jerky 10th novel by Isaacs (Long Time No See; Red, White, and Blue; etc.). Amy Lincoln was brought up in the projects by her Grandma Lil, a leg waxer and devoted Falcon Crest viewer; her amiable father, Chicky, spent most of Amy's childhood in prison on a series of minor theft raps. A boarding school scholarship rescues Amy from lower-class oblivion; she goes on to Harvard and Columbia, then lands a job at In Depth, a highbrow weekly. Upbeat and self-deprecating, Amy spends little time bemoaning her past, but an encounter with college student Freddy Carrasco, who claims he's the illegitimate son of a Democratic presidential candidate, gets Amy wondering where her own mother might be. While advising Freddy how to approach his father, she uses her reporting skills to track down her elusive mother. The political subplot is anticlimactic—Amy doesn't even get a scoop—and Amy's eventual reunion with her mother, revealed to be a chilly suburban housewife, is credibly if rather disappointingly subdued. The parade of lavishly and loopishly described secondary characters and gossipy New York scene-setting give the novel its zing; Amy's rocky relationship with her documentary filmmaker boyfriend provides a jolt of romantic excitement and a happy ending.
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Isaacs first started writing books in the mid-1970s. Three decades later, she’s published her 10th novel, Any Place I Hang My Hat, a Cinderella story with a TV-movie-of-the-week feel. Isaacs’s heroine, Amy Lincoln, suffers from abandonment and trust issues. She’s worked her way out of poverty and up the journalistic ladder, but she can’t quite get past the yearning to locate her long-lost mother and maternal grandparents. Most critics feel Isaacs has penned a heart-warming, if overly predictable, tale of self-realization and empowerment, but a few declared the journey to be more productive than the end result.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (October 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0739446495
• ISBN-13: 978-0739446492
• ASIN: 0743242157
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,601,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

First, here's what the critics say::

AFiction done well and done with a difference...A sophisticated storyteller, with a wry view of the world.@ - Washington Post


AJane Austen brought up to date...Highly amusing.@ - Atlantic Monthly


ASusan Isaacs is a witty, wry observer of the contemporary scene.@ - New York Times Book Review

ASardonic humor and dead-on commentary.@ - Houston Chronicle


ASusan Isaacs knows the art of dialogue the way J.S. Bach knew the art of the fugue.@ - Seattle Times


Blockbuster writers tend to be no more than terrific storytellers. Susan Isaacs=s talents go far beyond that. She is a witty, insightful, and elegant writer.@ - Mademoiselle

AI can think of no other novelist--popular or highbrow--who consistently celebrates female gutsiness, brains and sexuality. She=s Jane Austen with a schmear.@ Maureen Corrigan- National Public Radio Fresh Air


AWho....., is our best popular novelist? The nominee for this quarter is Susan Isaacs....[She] is a comic realist, an astute chronicler of contemporary life in the tradition of....Anthony Trollope.@ - Sun Sentinel



Susan's biography

Susan Isaacs, novelist, essayist and screenwriter, was born in Brooklyn and educated at Queens College. She worked as an editorial assistant at Seventeen magazine writing everything from book reviews to advice to the lovelorn. In 1968, Susan married Elkan Abramowitz, then a federal prosecutor. She became a senior editor but left Seventeen in 1970 to stay home with her newborn son, Andrew. Three years later, she gave birth to Elizabeth. During this time she freelanced, writing political speeches as well as magazine articles.

In the mid-seventies, Susan got the urge to write a novel. A year later she began Compromising Positions, a whodunit set on suburban Long Island. It was published in. Her second novel, Close Relations, a love story set against a background of ethnic, sexual and New York Democratic politics (thus a comedy), was published in. Her third, Almost Paradise, was published in 1984. All of Susan's novels have been New York Times bestsellers. Her fiction has been translated into thirty languages.

In 1985, she wrote the screenplay for Paramount's Compromising Positions, which starred Susan Sarandon and Raul Julia. She also wrote and co-produced Disney's Hello Again. The 1987 comedy starred Shelley Long and Gabriel Byrne.

Her fourth novel, Shining Through, set during World War II, was published in 1988. The film adaptation starred Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith. Then came Magic Hour January 1991, After All These Years in 1993. Lily White in 1996 and Red, White and Blue in 1998. In 1999, Susan came out with her first work of nonfiction, Brave Dames and Wimpettes: What Women Are Really Doing on Page and Screen. During 2000, she wrote a series of columns on the presidential campaign for Newsday. Long Time No See, a sequel to Compromising Positions, came out in September 2001. Anyplace I Hang My Hat, was published in 2004. Past Perfect is her eleventh novel.

Susan Isaacs is a recipient of the Writers for Writers Award and the John Steinbeck Award. She serves as chairman of the board of Poets & Writers and is a past president of Mystery Writers of America. She is also a member of the National Book Critics Circle, The Creative Coalition, PEN, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the International Association of Crime Writers, and the Adams Round Table. Besides writing innumerable book reviews, Susan has also written about politics, film and First Amendment issues. She lives on Long Island with her husband.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's hard to believe that over 25 years have passed...., October 19, 2004

By 

L. Quido "quidrock" (Tampa, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Any Place I Hang My Hat: A Novel (Hardcover)

.....since author Susan Isaacs penned her "Compromising Positions" yarn about a middle-aged suburban housewife. In THAT book, which may seem ordinary today, Isaacs broke
a lot of rules. She wrote about the suburban mom vs. working woman in a manner that poked fun at both. She let her heroine have an adulterous fling, and, somehow, it seemed
all right in a day and age when the sexual revolution was just something hippies were involved in. Over the years, in nine novels (ten, now!) Isaacs has given me much pleasure and literally has me stop and say more than once throughout each book-"that's happened to me...". My personal favorite of Isaac's novels is "After All These Years", but, then, I never met an Isaacs novel I didn't love.

I credit Susan Isaacs with starting the "chick lit" era, and she is a master. Her novels don't just make light of women facing issues, they generally are themed for a woman who is just discovering a whole lot about herself that she never knew. "Any Place I Hang My Hat" is no exception, although the heroine, Amy Lincoln (a 30-something Jewish-Italian New Yorker from the slums, with a missing mother who walked off and left her and a father ("Chicky") who has lived a life incarcerated, on and off)doesn't realize right away that she's destined to try to find her true self.

Naturally, Amy's used her wits and her knack for hard work and fitting in to go first to an exclusive boarding school, all expenses paid, then on to Harvard and Columbia to study journalism. She's a political writer for "In Depth" - a quality magazine with an educated following, and she's been involved for more than two years with a documentary
filmmaker, John Orenstein. She's got a longer relationship, for a decade and a half, with rich, exotic Tatty, her best
friend. The two met in boarding school when Tatty insulted her and Amy retaliated by punching her in the mouth. Tatty naturally does not have to work for a living, but chose a career in gourmet occasion cake making, after her two marriages failed. Isaacs normally draws me in with a more middle-aged heroine, but in the brilliant little journey that Amy makes to find herself in the novel, we quickly learn that she has an old soul.

Involved in the early part of the Democratic run for a presidential candidate, with a clever mix of real and imagined candidates, Amy's struck by the parallel between a young Hispanic man who crashes a fund-raiser, claiming the blueblooded Senator who is running for office is his father. Amy's own life has been lived trying not to speculate on why and how her mother, Phyllis, left her in the care of crazy Grandma Lil and jailbird Chicky. Phyllis never once looked back, and Amy has to decide - does she want to find Phyllis and find the answers to all those questions or is it just safer to leave the genie in the bottle?

Interspersed with the quest for her identity are the often humorous anecdotes of Amy's struggle with editorial control at the magazine, and her on and off again romance
with John. Warning: there is a broken heart that really leaves you feeling bereft in this novel.

In the concluding chapters, I will admit to tears, because Isaacs truly engaged me in her character, and never went over-the-top for her laughs. Indeed, Isaacs practices wit more than humor, romance more than sexual heat, and contemporary writing more than groundbreaking plotting. Reviewing the above, you may yawn and think it's just another plot that's been done before, but you haven't counted on Isaacs' style and way with a phrase or a concept. Here she has Amy assess her life:

"I could fit in anywhere: With all the kids on the bus going upstate to visit their fathers in prison. With all the Ivey girls and the guys they hung with. In a government seminar at Harvard. Drinking with the Democratic powers-that-be in Chicago. Except when you could theoretically live a thousand different lives, how do you pick the one where you belong?"

Join Isaacs and Amy for a journey of discovery, and enjoy the wit, charm, warmth, and ultimately and unfortunately, the end of a smart new novel. Isaacs only averages
one novel every 2.5 years. That's way too few with too much space between them, for my taste. Thus, I pay full price whenever I see she's got a new one on the shelves....believe me, "Any Place I Hang My Hat", was worth every penny!

Enjoy it!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An impressive and intelligent heroine, February 9, 2005

By 

Kharabella "Kharabella" (Somewhere in the midwest . . .) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Any Place I Hang My Hat: A Novel (Hardcover)

This was a very compelling and intelligent read that I would recommend to anyone who would enjoy an intelligent tale of a woman's personal growth. (I received this book as a Christmas present, and I am so grateful that someone finally understood my tastes in reading material!)

Amy's story is memorable -- she was abandoned by her mother as an infant, and raised by her delusioned, neglectful paternal grandmother, and by her father, when he was not in jail. She sees school and education as an escape, and when she has the chance, she accepts a scholarship at an elite boarding school. From there, she attends Harvard and Columbia school of journalism, and gets a job as a writer for a serious news magazine. Her travels through the different social levels of urban New York, from the projects to prisons to political circles to elite boarding schools, result in really striking and thought provoking commentary. (I didn't agree with every thing that Amy or the other characters said, and, happily, it didn't appear that Issacs was offering a lecture.) At the same time, the story is accessibly comtemporary, making frequent reference to recent world events and popular culture in a way that grounds the story in a particular time and place and gives the impression that Amy is not so devoted to politics and CSPAN that she has never watched reality TV.

Susan Issac creates a intelligent, self-sufficient, yet vulnerable character and neither Issacs not her character seems inclined to understimate the intelligence of the reader. Amy is charming, smart (reading four or five newspapers a day with a keen interest in politics and current events) and interested in what is going on in the world around her. In order to grasp and appreciate some of Amy's wit and social criticism, the reader is expected to be a smart, well-aware person as well. Amy Lincoln is a truly memorable literary character, incredibly thoughtful, observant, honest, witty, and vulnerable.

One of my favorite scenes is one where Amy falls in her apartment (she later learns that she had broken three ribs) and she is unable to get up off the floor. She is in pain, and worried that she had really hurt herself. She wants to call someone and ask for help, but is afraid that no one would be interested enough to come and help her. She does call an aquaintance, lying on her back on the floor, but she is unable to bring herself to tell him what has happened to her. When she can't keep him on the phone any longer, she makes her way to her bedroom, and in the morning takes herself to an emergency room. The quiet, resigned way in which she deals with her aloneness is heartbreaking and impressive at the same time. Though scared, Amy never seems depressed. I hope that this book gets the attention it deserves.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointing book, June 11, 2006

By 

Fastwalk (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Any Place I Hang My Hat: A Novel (Paperback)

Susan Isaacs usually offers a fast but entertaining read, with astute commentary mixed with tales of social climbing and coupling. This book flops, though. The writing is turgid. The plot is uninteresting. The characters never come to life and are not believable. Isaacs' own social climbing and insecurities are fully on view.

In this novel, Isaacs' protagonist was plucked from a housing project and selected for an elite boarding school based on her brains. She then went to Harvard. When the novel opens, she is a journalist for a serious political magazine. Nothing this woman says or does shows any sign of intellect. I could not picture her as a respected political writer, or as she herself puts it, "a better-than-competent journalist and political analyst" (p.301). The reader would need to be shown these skills. Believe me, we aren't.

The protagonist's father, Chicky, a felon with a heart of gold, is equally implausible. Freddy, an alleged resident of the barrio, talks in an absurd manner. What Latino teenager says so-and-so "has been conferencing with my father's lawyer"?

I also was put off by Isaacs' ethnic chauvinism. A previous reviewer mentioned how this played out in terms of Mid East politics. I also observed it in the protagonist's many put downs of WASPS. It's OK to make fun of others, in a light-hearted way, but this had a mean-spirited quality, including discussion of how a blue-eyed man could not be attractive to the protagonist. Really? The color of a person's eyes is decisive in this regard?

This book is poorly put together, badly plotted, and without true character development. It's not even funny. The main character is annoying and narcissistic. If I had to guess how this book came about, I would say that Isaacs got so big in the sales department that her publisher let her venture forth with this, without the editing that's probably saved her in the past.