Bygones [Hardcover]

LaVyrle Spencer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 1992

Bess Curran is shaken from her comfortable, independent, post-divorce life when her daughter becomes pregnant and plans a wedding in which she asks both parents to walk her down the aisle. 250,000 first printing. Doubleday Main. Lit Guild Alt. Reader's Digest Cond Bks.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Prolific Spencer ( Forgiving ) here takes a compassionate look at a contemporary family undergoing painful transitions. Bess Curran, 40, is an interior designer in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, still lonely and bitter after her traumatic divorce six years earlier. Her adult daughter, Lisa, anxious for her parents to reconcile, arranges a surprise dinner meeting where she informs them that she is pregnant and about to marry. Bess and former husband Michael (he left her for another woman, who, in turn, has just left him) can barely control their mutual animosity yet must come to grips with the startling news. To exacerbate matters, their 19-year-old son, Randy, is intractably hostile toward his father and seems headed for a future of drugs and unsavory companions. Bess and Michael are attracted to each other but wary--they're suffering and groping for help. Spencer tells their tale with her customary sentimentality ("Ah, sweet, sweet healing. Ah, welcome love") and provides a suitably soothing ending. Doubleday Book Club main and Literary Guild alternate selections; condensation rights to Reader's Digest.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

By the author of Forgiving and other romances, a sizable stretch of musing and talk as a couple, divorced six years before, find their way back together. Bess Curran, 40, is a successful interior decorator in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area--in spite of her bitterness that ex- husband Michael, in their married days, had offered no support at all for her career. Michael is sour, too, but he's most hurt by the absolute hatred of their son Randy, who at 19 has left school, lives with Mom, plays drums, and smokes pot. It's daughter Lisa, though, who brings Bess and Michael together at a dinner when she announces that she and Mark Padgett--a clean-cut young man, so athletic his muscular forearms ``appeared unable to comfortably touch his sides''--will marry soon and are expecting. Bess and Michael approve of the new in-laws--friendly and wholesome (Mr. Padgett toasts with iced tea)--and Randy is attracted to Mark's sister, Maryanne, who asks Pa before accepting a ride home and won't stand for cussin'. Meanwhile, proximity works its magic: Michael asks Bess to decorate his condo, and grandmother Stella (a dismally sexy old babe) reminds Bess of her part in the breakup. It all ends with two hospital whammos: Lisa's birthing and Randy's maiden trip on cocaine. But, of course, there's a happy close. Apart from some frantic sex, it's as sunny and bland as milk pudding--though with a selling uplift message. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 382 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1992 edition edition (February 3, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399137149
• ISBN-13: 978-0399137143
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,151,378 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Let bygones be bygones..., April 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Bygones (Mass Market Paperback)

LaVyrle Spencer writes: "It always takes two, honey, but when a man retaliates by having an affair, he's usually the one who gets all the blame." This was a tender, sentimentally written book about a divorced woman, Bess, who takes a long, thoughtful look at her failed marriage and realizes that she's partly to blame for its demise. After all, she was the one who went back to school in an attempt to make a career outside of the home, while neglecting her husband, his needs, and her traditional household chores in the process. In turn, her ex-husband, Michael, newly divorced from his second wife, mopes around his empty condo and comes to the disheartening realization that he doesn't even know how to take care of himself. In a life-affirming, men-can-change-even-if-raised-in-the-40s way, Michael learns how to make eggs and does his very own laundry after 43 years, winning Bess' love and forgiveness without ever having to say he's sorry for cheating on her.

To add to this heart-warming tableau, we have the uneducated, holier-than-thou daughter, Lisa, who, with the great wisdom and maturity of her 21 years, attempts to manipulate her divorced parents into reconciliation. As driven by the nostalgia that haunts every character in this book, Lisa wants her family to be whole again for her unborn child and upcoming wedding.

The only somewhat sympathetic character in this book is Randy, Bess and Michael's drug using son, who is a "loser" that works at a nuthouse (which is so much better than Lisa's typist/waitress job), and blames his father (gasp) for having an affair and breaking up their happy home. But he too succumbs to the general theme of blandness and nostalgia when falling for the saintly MaryAnne Padgett, a throwback to a "simpler time."

I highly recommend this book ...

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Definitely NOT her best, June 25, 2006

By 

C. Mills "cam3150" (Alabama) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bygones (Mass Market Paperback)

I've read somewhere around 200 romance novels in my short life (I'm 30). I mostly read books from Nora Roberts, Judith McNaught, Sandra Brown, Danielle Steel and, of course, Lavyrle Spencer. I consider these 5 authors to be the best in the genre. Of these 5 none are better at characterization, descriptive writing, storyline, sustentative plot, and absolutely drawing you in to a book than Miss Spencer.

I have read probably 95% of all of her available titles. Normally, I am so drawn into the story that I am reading at work, I'm reading at stoplights, I'm getting up early to read "just one more chapter", I'm racing home to read just a little before my evening starts. I can normally finish one of her books in about 3 days, with my normal reading pattern.

I've had Bygones for a while and, just reading the description on the back, I honestly was not that excited about it. But, the last few books I'd read were `historical' romances and I was ready for something a little more modern. So I picked up Bygones and started reading. I should not have bothered.

When comparing Bygones to books by some of the other authors I've read (NOT any that I've already mentioned), it comes away as a spectacular novel. However, when comparing it to any of Miss Spencer's other books, it gets an F.

I read a romance novel so that I can get drawn into the story of the romantic leads. Yes, they are predictable, yes they are a lot of fluff, yes they can be very unrealistic and kind of cheesy. But, this is what I love so much about them. We all know that the couple will end up together but the fun is in the journey.

One of my problems with Bygones is there was entirely too much attention paid to the children and their lives. A good 40% of the story was about other characters that I simply did not care about. By about 150 pages in, the romantic leads had only had a few interactions. When the finally did get together, it was completely anti-climactic and I had trouble believing that they cared at all about each other, much less were "in love" as they claimed. Normally, before the couple gets together there is a good bit of interaction between them, there is a building of their relationship, there a build up to the moment that they become intimate.

As I mentioned, nobody is better at writing these aspects than Lavyrle but none of those aspects were present in Bygones. Granted, this story was about a divorced couple who were reconnecting w/ one another. But, there was never any kind of explanation as to why the got together in the first place. The couple barely had any real interaction w/ one another before hoping in the sack again.

I can normally finish one of her books in about 3 days, with my normal reading pattern. It took me almost a month to finish this book. I went days without reading it at all because I just didn't care. I just was not into it at all. But, I'd already started it so I kept plugging along, hoping, knowing that it would get better. It didn't. I didn't care about these characters, I didn't care about their lives, I didn't really care whether Bess & Michael even ended up together. I just kept wondering when the book would be done.

As I said, in comparison to other books I've read, some of which have been real duds, anything by Miss Spencer is fabulous. But Bygones is, far and away, the worst book by this particular author that I have ever read. It cannot even compare to classics like The Hellion, The Gamble, Separate Beds, Hummingbird, November of the Heart, Morning Glory, Vows, and Spring Fancy. Therefore, that's why this book only gets one star from me.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hopeful!, January 22, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Bygones (Paperback)

This is one of my favorites! The author paced the story with the perfect beat and measure! She started off with a cause - to bring the parents back together, a plot - the upcoming nuptuals of their daughter and the closure between father and son, and of course the resolution in the end - the two getting back together. I truly loved every aspect of the relationship all the characters had and it was so believable. The author made sure that everyone in the book had enough purpose and nothing was overdone as far as description. All the characters remained true to the plot and all the extras were perfectly intertwined. Hope was what I came up with in the end and by the time I finished the book, I was in tears. It made me believe that with a little ingenuity, nothing is impossible!