A Big Storm Knocked It over [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Laurie Colwin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1994

Jane Louise Parker, a book designer in her thirties, enters into marriage with Teddy and plans on becoming pregant, hoping it will cure the vague rootless feelings she experiences. (General Fiction).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Reading Colwin's ( Goodbye Without Leaving ) posthumous novel is a bittersweet experience; delight in her irresistible characters and her sensitive probing of life's mysteries is tinged with regret that we will never again see the reflections of her wise and imaginative mind. This is Colwin's most mature novel, her most deeply felt (but characteristically light-fingered) domestic fairy tale for adults. Colwin's characters share a supersensitivity, and a wide-eyed wonder toward even mundane institutions and events. Here, late 30-ish book designer Jane Louise Parker, recently married to plant chemist Teddy, has difficulty thinking of herself as a grown-up. Jewish, dark and "a nomad," she has a free-floating anxiety, born of a lifetime of feeling excluded. She feels inferior to focused Teddy, the scion of a WASP family with roots in a small community in the Berkshires. Not much actually happens in this book: Jane Louise fends off the advances of her libidinous boss; she and her best friend, caterer and pastry chef Edie, become pregnant, and have babies. Motherhood provides Jane Louise with a new source of anxiety, but that is dispelled, temporarily at least, by her realization that her daughter Miranda will have roots and a secure identity. Meanwhile, Colwin examines some traditional institutions with a laser-sharp eye and an offbeat sense of humor. She speculates about marriage and families and friendships, about differences between the sexes, and about such existential questions as "Were other people ever, ever knowable?" All of this is expressed in witty, accurate dialogue and graceful prose, and with inimitable charm.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The mysteries of married life and the vagaries of one's own family and one's spouse's family are topics Colwin skillfully illuminates in a posthumously published novel. For Jane Louise, even Teddy--her wonderful, new, rock-solid husband--and a baby on the way are not enough to stave off plenty of free-floating anxiety. Luckily, she shares her joy and her distress with best friends Edie and Mokie, who have decided to embark on parenthood at the same time. The extended family formed by these two couples must suffice emotionally for each of the four individuals, since not one of the four fits within his or her own family. Colwin's radiant cast of characters populates a warm and witty story full of perfect moments. This very touching, very contemporary tale of love in the 1990s is certain to be popular. Alice Joyce --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 345 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Pr; Lrg edition (February 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078620155X
• ISBN-13: 978-0786201556
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,013,076 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Right on, February 21, 2000

By 

Manola Sommerfeld (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Big Storm Knocked It over (Paperback)

Love is a subject that has been tackled by everyone who ever grabbed a pen and decided to write. Some have been accurate in their depictions, but i find that i read a lot about love and don't quite connect with the emotions or with the characters. With this book, Laurie Colwin wiped me off my feet. I can totally put myself in the shoes of Jane Louise, who wants desperately to make everything OK for her husband, who cannot understand how someone so lovely could have been treated badly by others, who gets outraged at the thought that her beloved suffered at some point in his life. This is one of the key corners of love, and i have yet to find other authors that put their finger right there. This was an awesome love story. I watched a movie on PBS called "Ask me Again" some 12 years ago, and i have not been able to forget it. What do you know? Laurie Colwin wrote the script. Thank you for leaving us with such terrific books and movies.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I discovered Laurie Colwin too late, November 1, 2003

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Big Storm Knocked It over (Paperback)

Years ago, I used to look forward to issues of Gourmet to see if another of Laurie Colwin's whimsical, insightful, and so well-written essays would be included. Then, with no warning, came the announcement that "this will be her last submission to Gourmet," as she had died unexpectedly and at far too young an age.
That's the first I learned that she'd written several novels, so I began reading all of them. A Big Storm Knocked It Over was her fifth and was published posthumously.
Happy All the Time is my favorite of her books, but this one is pretty damn good. Like all of Colwin's books, it's quiet and introspective. Jean Louise is a NY book designer whose boss, Sven, comes on to her all the time - and JL can't deny the attraction. But she's totally happily married to a calm and pretty ordinary chemist. Then she gives birth to a daughter, and her joy is complete - almost. She still has those unspecified hankerings, the feeling she's maybe missing something. It's Colwin's wisdom about relationships, her sharp eye of always watching, watching that make her books so special. Unlike this Big Storm, Colwin's books don't knock you over - but you find yourself thinking about them for a long time afterwards.
She is greatly missed.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A finely crafted, quietly comic affirmation of union., November 22, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: A Big Storm Knocked It over (Paperback)

I am not normally given to overstatement. I can, however, think of no other work I have encountered yet that can rival Laurie Colwin's "A Big Wind Knocked It Over" for reinforcing the balance between idiosyncracy and pure happiness that comes from a union, whether it be one of marriage or of friendship. Colwin's prose, while spare, rings with images and emotional relevance. I, as well as everyone else I have discussed this work with, have found myself, the smallest details of my personality, echoed in her words. The characters, without exception, are wonderfully flawed and human, drawn with an attention to detail that brings life to their written existences, and transcend the reader-text barrier to make them as present as a coworker or a friend. Anything more I could say would throw this review into the realm of the hyperbolic, so I will close by recommending this work to any and all readers. It stands on my bookshelf next to the works of Shakespeare and the "Maus" graphic novels of Art Spiegelman. All three I consider depictions of life without equal in the literary world.