It was a situation from which half-hour television comedies are made. "Marcia! In tonight's episode, Marcia Green's warm and winning and wise and wonderful Jewish family reminds her that she is thirty-five, divorced, and childless."
That's Marcia on her close relations. True, she's one of the best speechwriters around in the tough world of New York's smoke-filled rooms, but her family wants something else for her. No, not that Irish person she's living with. Another doctor, or at least a dentist.
But Marcia claims she's happy, getting plenty of the two things that exhilarate her most: sex and politics. She's not looking for commitment, and certainly not looking for a wealthy Harvard-educated man-about-town who is every mother's dream. Yet as wise mothers everywhere are fond of saying: you never know.
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.
I first read this book more than 15 years ago, and it was my introduction to Susan Isaacs' work. Since then, my coopy has literally fallen aprt, and I was delighted to see a reprint.
The heroine, Marcia, has a good life. Her family wants her to have a different life. How Marcia gets what she alsways dreamed of and makes her family happy is a funny, bitter, and very true story. Anyone who has ever tried to forge a life of their own will see themselves in Marcia.
I know this book so well, I sometimes quote parts of it. It has never failed to give me pleasure, and it has the right mix of good writing, good characters and good plot to keep the story moving.
Buy it and read it before Labor Day!
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Isaacs follows the great COMPROMISING POSITIONS with another winner that follows similar lines. Only in this case it is not middle-America suburbian married life that is being examined but poor Marcia and her gaggle of well-meaning relatives. She is introduced to loser after loser until there he is one day.
The sexual exploits combine with her amateur snooping to create a funny, intriguing book with characters as well-honed as the plot. Isaacs has a way with words and specializes in dialogue of the funny sort. I again laughed out loud over and over and the characters became almost like the people you meet daily. Good fun can be had by all.
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As I read Close Relations, I often felt like the weather broadcaster in the movie "Groundhog Day." Our heroine, Marcia, is stuck in an impossible relationship with a thinly-drawn co-worker during a political campaign, and their fights and the campaign scenes are endlessly replayed. As every possible political and relationship cliche is played out, we also have to deal with every possible stereotype of oppressive Jewish relatives hungry for their offspring to marry.
Marcia is supposed to be a high-powered political operative and in demand for her speech-writing skills, but little evidence of this is shown. Given the mess of her personal life, it's a bit hard to imagine she functions so well professionally.
If all of this weren't tedious and insulting enough to the reader, Marcia meets Mr. Right finally and, of course, Mr. Right is not only a perfect conversationalist, a gourmand, good-looking, liberated, and a magnificent lover but also RICH, RICH, RICH! Just like real life.
I generally like Susan Isaacs and her wit and good writing tend to keep me in one of her books to the end, despite its quality. Unfortunately, Close Relations is one of her lesser offerings and I grudgingly gave it only three stars.
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First Sentence:
My family hated my job. Read the first pageKey Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Aunt Estelle, New York, Uncle Julius, Sidney Appel, Jerry Morrissey, Joe Cole, David Hoffman, William Paterno, Uncle Sidney, City Hall, Greenwich Village, Central Park, Marcia Green, High Oaks, Leo Hoffman, Long Island, Eileen Gerrity, Grandma Yetta, Kathye Baron, New Jersey, Queens College, Sullivan County, Bill Paterno, Greene County, Jim Gresham
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