The Breakdown Lane [Mass Market Paperback]

Jacquelyn Mitchard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 2006

No one has their finger on the pulse of modern marriage and family the way that Jackie Mitchard does. In THE BREAKDOWN LANE, she once again brings to life the drama of ordinary people going through extraordinary times. Giving advice is what Julianne Ambrose Gillis does for a living-- every Sunday she doles it out to clueless people she doesn-t know, in a column in her local Wisconsin newspaper. But when it comes to her personal life, Julie seems to have no insight whatsoever. She has worked very hard to keep her marriage fresh and to be a good mother, so it-s a mystery when Leo, her husband of twenty years, decides to defect from their life together and their three children, Gabe, Caroline and Aury. In his absence, Julie is diagnosed with a serious illness, which drives her children to undertake a dangerous journey to find Leo-- before it-s too late. But what they discover about their father is even more devastating than their mother-s deteriorating health. As the known world sinks precariously from view and leaves them all adrift, the Gillis clan must navigate their way through the trenches of love, guilt and betrayal, back to solid ground and a new definition of family.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

No one could blame Julieanne Gillis, beleaguered heroine of this no-holds-barred family drama by Mitchard (The Deep End of the Ocean, etc.) for not seeing the signs. At first her lawyer husband, Leo Steiner, seems to be in the throes of a midlife crisis, informing Julieanne that he is planning to take early retirement and go and live on a commune in upstate New York for six months. The next thing she knows, he's vanished, leaving her with three children and only her meager income from her advice column for the Sheboygan, Wis., local newspaper. To make matters worse, she's diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The narration alternates between plucky Julieanne and her 15-year-old son, Gabe, a handsome Holden Caulfieldesque loner with a mild learning disability. When things get desperate, Gabe and his 14-year-old sister, Caroline, scan their dad's old e-mails and learn where he might be. Then, during spring break, lying like troopers, the two juveniles take off by bus to find their father. Surely, they think, he'll come home when he learns that their mother is sick. He comes, but the baggage he brings along means further disaster. Leo's behavior is almost campishly craven, but the novel's soap-operatic bathos is perversely satisfying. Rousing melodrama; fluid, often funny, dialogue; and the convincing portrayal of children involved in the collapse of a marriage add up to another page-turner from Mitchard.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Look up the word cad in the dictionary, and you should find Leo Steiner's picture beside it. Selfish, shallow, and arrogant, he epitomizes a middle-aged man undergoing a midlife crisis, and deserves a high rank on anyone's list of low-life losers. In Mitchard's latest foray, Leo abandons his 20-year marriage to Julianne, parentage of two teenagers and a toddler, and a lackluster legal career in favor of a utopian existence on a commune with some erstwhile hippies. His departure comes just as Julie is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and the teenagers and toddler all hit the peak of their age brackets' vulnerability. It is how Julie deals with this despicable lout, the dissolution of her marriage, the disruption of her family, and the deterioration of her health that showcases Mitchard at her relationship-defining best. Julie is admirable yet approachable, neither a long-suffering martyr nor a whining, clueless cliche. She copes, she cries, she fusses at her kids, they yell back. The eldest, Gabe, a learning-disabled teen outcast, is both his mother's rock and the novel's heart, his journal entries revealing a preternaturally wise and sensitive young man. An astute observer of family dynamics, Mitchard renders her characters flawlessly, endowing them with a humanity that is both accessibly grounded and astonishingly deep. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: HarperTorch (March 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060587253
• ISBN-13: 978-0060587253
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,832,254 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jacquelyn Mitchard was born in Chicago. Her first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, was published in 1996, becoming the first selection of the Oprah Winfrey Book Club and a number one New York Times bestseller. Eight other novels, four children's books and six young adult novels followed, including The Midnight Twins, Still Summer, All We Know of Heaven, and The Breakdown Lane. A former daily newspaper reporter, Mitchard now is a contributing editor for Parade Magazine, and frequently writes for such publications as More magazine and Real Simple. Her essays and short stories have been widely anthologized. An adjunct professor in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at Fairfield University, she lives in Wisconsin with her husband and their nine children

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Honest, Moving Novel, April 21, 2005

By 

N. Gargano "nokegchris" (Waynesville NC and Bradenton, Fl) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Breakdown Lane - LARGE PRINT (Hardcover)

I really loved this book. I won't go into details of the plot, amazon and the other reviewers have done that already, but I just want fans of Ms. Mitchard's Deep End of the Ocean to give this one a try. I have not loved all of her other books since Deep End, so I wasn't sure about reading this one but the other Amazon reviews sparked my interest.
The writing was honest and real, the characters had their flaws and blemishes, just like real people. Most of the time, a book about a woman who gets dumped, has children and has an illness, is made out to be a saint, an angel, a hero. Well, not here. She is real....As I got to the end, I was concerned about the way the story was going, everything tied up with a bow, nice and neat, I was afraid Ms. Mitchard was giving into happy ever after land...but she didn't. Even the ending was like real life, not perfect.
Once I started this book, I couldn't put it down, give it a try, I think you will be glad you did.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Where is the Real Jacquelyn Mitchard?, January 5, 2006

By 

Blue (Sunny South) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Breakdown Lane - LARGE PRINT (Hardcover)

The Deep End of the Ocean was one of the best books I've ever read. Twelve Times Blessed was one of the worst books I've read and The Breakdown Lane? Not great and not terrible just...disappointing. The story was interesting, engaging and kept me reading, but the dialogue was so unrealistic and stilted that I found myself getting annoyed. Leo and Mark were the kind of one-dimensional stereotypical characters that are often found in "women's novels". Mitchard is capable of better. The happy ending was just plain unbelievable--the odds of something like that happening in real life are incredible. Seems to me that Mitchard couldn't figure out how to end the book, so she just tied a pretty bow on it and hoped for the best. Too bad. She's a better writer than this book reveals.

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book!, April 5, 2005

By 

Ratmammy "The Ratmammy" (Ratmammy's Town, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Breakdown Lane - LARGE PRINT (Hardcover)

THE BREAKDOWN LANE by Jacquelyn Mitchard
April 5, 2005


THE BREAKDOWN LANE was my first book by Jacquelyn Mitchard, and it was not what I had expected. In some ways, her writing style reminded me (at first) of Joyce Carol Oates, a writer that I have read once and had a very hard time reading, but by the time I read the last page, I said, "Wow!". Mitchard writes her stories in somewhat the same way. At least in THE BREAKDOWN LANE, the characters reminded me of those in Oates' WHEN WE WERE THE MULVANEYS. Lots of characters that you aren't sure you will like, and one that I totally loathed and despised, populated THE BREAKDOWN LANE.

Julie is a middle-aged woman who has never been called traditional. And neither is her husband. Julie grew up with a famous father (a writer) and lived with wealth. Her husband is Jewish and his childhood was quite different. This book isn't so much about their relationship, but about two people that go through some really weird stuff as her husband Leo seems to be going through a really bad mid-life crisis, but it's more than just that. Leo pretty much "drops out" of society and lives his life as he pleases, not really caring about how it impacts those around him. Julie in the mean time is going through some major health issues, and eventually finds out she has MS. With a jerk of a deadbeat husband and three kids that need them both, she is at her wit's end.

While I enjoyed this story, I don't know if I liked the way that it was told. There was something missing. Sometimes I felt that the author jumped ahead when she shouldn't have, skipped things to make time pass faster. Sometimes it worked, but I felt that this is one of those instances when a book should have been longer. My guess is that either the editor made her cut out a lot (to keep it a mainstream novel) or the author simply got lazy. I'm guessing it's the former.

I really admire a writer, however, that can make you hate a character as much as I hated Leo. There are men (and women) like this in the world. Leo was a sociopath who can justify everything he did. He was a poor excuse for a father, a husband, and a human being. He definitely needed psychological help. I felt bad for Julie, although I can't say that I "liked" her. But I liked the way the author portrayed her.

I did feel the ending came on too soon, that things were wrapped up too quickly, and I didn't think this book should have had a "happy" ending. But, maybe that was better than a totally sad ending, since readers would have really been upset. I have one more book by her on my TBR shelves (her Oprah selection) that I guess I should try to read later this year. It would be good to compare the two books.