Customer Reviews

Anybody Any Minute

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

 

 

In 1995, Manhattanite fortyish Ellen Kenny heads to Montreal to spend time with her sister Karen and her infant nephew Olivier. However, the former hippie stops in Eagle Beck, New York and on a whim buys a fixer upper house not occupied since 1988; all on a credit card. Her spouse of seventeen years Tommy is stunned when she calls to tell him.

Ellen realizes that her purchase may have had a consequential side effect of devastating her marriage, but feels she did the right thing. However as she tries to become part of the small town, Ellen feels like an outsider even though she becomes friends with the local Hatfield and McCoy, feuding Rayfield and Rodney while Olivier is living with her for now.

This interesting character study looks deep at a disenchanted middle aged woman who finds her current secure life unsatisfactory and makes a whimsical spur of the moment decision to capture what she feels she lost but could cost her marriage with Oliver. When the tale focuses on Ellen's relationships with her husband, sister, and nephew, the subplot is powerful and emotional. When the novel turns humorous with her being pulled by the feuding duo and other locals the story line is more amusing but dissipates some of its steam. Still this is a fine look at a former hippie turned middle class trying to regain the idealism of her lost youth paradise , but the reality does not always match the memory.

When over a year ago I heard Julie Mars read a couple chapters from Anybody Any Minute, I couldn't get over how different it seemed from her previous book A Month of Sundays, a memoir of her sister. Anybody, a novel about a woman--a forty-six-year-old ex-hippie on the lam from her marriage to a New York City public defender--seemed close to farcical. Ellen Kenny, aka Florence the Ripper, has been fired from her job working for a producer-director of political documentaries. On impulse having bought a ramshackle house in the boonies near the Canadian border by charging it on her credit card, Ellen moves in for the summer and without ado befriends a couple of male characters who transform from caricature to beloved companions, becomes a stand-in mom to her toddler nephew Olivier, adopts a narcoleptic dog Mutley, and produces a cornucopia of veggies by watering her organic garden with a watering can.

Becoming a homebuyer on a credit card and then calling her husband to tell him is no funnier than what happens to Ellen when she is caught in a rain barrel naked, when she takes too big a yawn, or when she plays getaway driver in a scene from The Graduate, but these events give way to a deeper seriousness about achieving ipsissimus ("she who is most herself") and opening her heart to whatever unexpected occurs at any minute. With a knack for attracting men whose names begin with R (Reginald, Rodney, and Rayfield), Ellen struggles through ambivalent moments about retrieving her marriage to Tommy while being a devoted sister to Karen whose Peruvian husband is in a coma throughout most of the book.

Ellen's self-centeredness leaves plenty of room for others as she makes her way from attachment to non-attachment in a well-paced set of chapters. Her humor is no more directed at others than at herself: "I guess that's why I ended up a researcher when I always wanted to be a backup singer," she says. Her tone is alternately self-mocking and manic. A line that doesn't fully do her justice because it overlooks all her retreats is "For Ellen, though, slamming in, head-on, was a way of life." Her relationship with Rayfield Geebo (reluctant ex of a woman nicknamed Wide Load) develops unexpectedly, and Ellen's openness to the previous owner's chainsaw art and his mother's legacy cap the plot. The miracle of the funereal statue and the discovery of sixty-year old gold coins are touchstones for healing and reconciliation. And finally, the hilarious reason the locals have decided Ellen bought the house is a perfect segue for her husband's reappearance at the end. Julie is my former colleague at Central New Mexico Community College, and I'm glad I finally took time to read this endearing and often outrageous book.

Every now and then I read a novel and the characters stay with me long after I close the book. Anybody Any Minute is one of those distinct pleasures. I found myself cheering for the entire cast of complex characters - each in a different way. Julie Mars created an ensemble that cracked me up and made me cry. I only wish these people were real because I would love to meet them. The story went unexpected places -which kept me riveted -- but in the end - it all made perfect sense. I would recommend this book to anyone who is pondering their meaning in life -- and what it takes to truly live in the now. Great, great read!

i picked up this book at random thinking the location was to my liking. i believe every woman no matter age or life experiences dreams of a place of her own. one to mold into who she really is void of all the responsibilties that are created or god given.i thoroughly enjoyed every page of this wonderful book. could picture myself planting a garden, using the old washing machine & making such extroadinary friends. many thanks to julie mars for her special trip through my dream vacation this summer. i am a senior citizen who has always wanted to move to vermont & take my chances. but, that is out of the question for me now so this book was my "summer romance" into the world i hankered for all these years.

Anybody, Any Minute explores an adventure about opening one's own heart while appreciating new friends and old relationships. Memorable characters, lots of laughs and tears and a touch of magic realism. If you experienced the sixties or have been attracted to alternative lifestyles and people out of the main stream of acceptability, you'll enjoy Julie Mars' humorous and touching page turner that is full of insight.

"Anybody, Any Minute" by Julie Mars is a raucous romp through the memory of a middle-aged New York woman trying to figure out who to become in her next phase of life. The scenes in the book where Ellen takes care of her nephew are touching and somewhat sad, while the larger story line careens through enough "stuff" to fill several lifetimes. Following Mars' brilliant memoir "A Month of Sundays", "Anybody, Any Minute" really showcases the authors varied talents - a great story - funny and melancholy at the same time. I love a story that really grabs me.

I enjoyed the story except the characters seemed to have no respect for marriage! Wife and husband seemed to think that monogomy in marriage was optional. I hated the way they related to each other and treated their marriage. Other than that, I loved the other characters in the book! It was a fun read when I wasn't being disgusted by the lack of sacredness in their attitude toward their wedding vows.

On a whim, while en route to Montreal to visit her sister, 46-year-old New Yorker Ellen Kenny buys an old house in the middle of nowhere. It's a reaction, presumably, to her having been fired from her most recent job, and it's the first clear indication that she's disenchanted with her life in the city with her husband Tommy. Ellen moves into the house for the summer, trying on an alternate life while searching for her identity. She creates an ad hoc family out of her new acquaintances: Rayfield lives in a trailer and is recently separated from his wife, "Wide Load," who left him because of his penile dysfunction; Rodney, who sold Ellen the house, turns out to be a sort of artistic genius. At the same time, Ellen's 18-month-old nephew Olivier winds up staying with her for much of the summer because of a family emergency, which allows Ellen to try on the role of motherhood for the first time.

As the above may suggest, Anybody Any Minute is more about character than plot. And the book does offer readers a number of characters who could walk off the page: Rodney, Rayfield, and Ellen are each very well realized. Unfortunately, if Ellen were really to step out of the book I'd soon want her out of my house: she's a very annoying character, a one-time free-loving hippie who's never quite grown up and who is given to bouts of hysterical laughter and naval-gazing.

"'Take a nap,' Rayfield said. 'I'll drive.'

"At first, Ellen wanted to resist. To surrender her keys to Rayfield seemed dangerously symbolic. Jungians, she knew, called cars in dreams 'personal vehicles.' If someone else was driving yours, it was time to ask why. Of course, Jungians believed that all the persons in the dream symbolized an aspect of the dreamer herself. What part of her did Rayfield represent? Her aimless inner male, handicapped by a penis that could not stand up and be counted? Or perhaps the part of her that was tired of coping with the high-stakes world of New York City, the part that wanted to throw itself into a bucket seat, crack a beer, and blow smoke rings?"

Not for nothing is Ellen told to shut up a time or two in the book.

The second and most important problem with Anybody Any Minute is that it's too damned long. It's filled with passages like the above, endless verbiage that makes reading the book a chore. You could easily knock a hundred unnecessary pages off the story and leave readers wanting more. That would be a great improvement, because again, the characters Mars created in the novel definitely deserve an audience, and I'm glad to have been introduced to them.

-- Debra Hamel

I liked this book quite a bit and recommended it for my book club. There was a mixed reaction to the story. Some of the characters annoyed the members and they didn't all relate to the main character (Ellen) as I did. This book has elements of mysticism and one must be able to accept some ideas on faith alone.

The reason I recommended the book is that we are a bunch of women in our 30's and 40's whom I believe can relate to much of the main characters feelings and emotions. We all have moments of disappointment, frustration, loss, etc. What makes this book a little different than others is how Ellen, the main character, copes with her difficulties. How many of us would like to just pack up and leave our current lives, for a short period of time? Ellen discovers the grass is not always greener, yet in her period of uncertainty, she also learns more about herself and those important to her.

Filled with a spectacular group of supporting characters, this book held my attention until the end. There was a decent amount of intrigue and mystery as well, to keep the reader guessing. Not a five star because some elements tied up too neatly and others too vague.