The End of an Error [Hardcover]

Mameve Medwed (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 10, 2003

Who can ever forget the lightning strike of first love? Lee Emery has certainly never forgotten Simon, the boy who stole her heart when she was 18 and traipsing through Europe with her Auntie Mame of a grandmother. But that was 25 years ago. Since then, she has married another man, had three children and lives a nice, comfortable life in the very house where she grew up. But after writing a memoir of that summer, in which she describes falling in love with Simon, Lee can't get him out of her mind. "What about the path not taken?" she wonders. "What if?" When the opportunity arises for her to see Simon once again, Lee realizes that she must take the trip--and take the chance that everything in her life may never be the same.
- Mameve Medwed's most recent novel, Host Family (Warner hardcover, 2000), received critical acclaim in publications such as Publishers Weekly, Newsday, Denver Post, and Kirkus Reviews. It was a Featured Alternate of the Book-of-the-Month Club(R).
- Medwed's debut novel, Mail (Warner, 1997), received glowing reviews from the New York Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune, and Boston Globe, among other national publications. Film rights have been optioned by director Sharon Maguire (Bridget Jones's Diary).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The author is a practiced hand at warmhearted women's fiction (Host Family; Mail), and her punning title suggests she has struck a more than usually giddy note here. In fact, the humor in this tale of Lee Emery, a happily married woman of a certain age who unaccountably finds herself hankering after her first love, a wry young Englishman she met in her student days, is sometimes a little forced, and it is the moments of genuine emotion that come across more strongly. Lee has written a memoir of her glamorous grandmother Marguerite, who encouraged her fleeting London affair with Simon so long ago, and when she lets steadfast but rather boring husband Ben read it (once it's been published) and impulsively sends a copy to Simon, it churns up her whole life. The denouement is quietly touching if not entirely believable, and the portrait of Marguerite, clinging to her cherished luxuries, even as she sinks into desuetude, is skillfully composed of equal parts amusement and compassion. It's only in scenes like Lee's unhappy bookstore reading or the bestsellerdom envisaged for Ben's obsessive academic history of an obscure Maine patriarch that Medwed veers dangerously close to farce and seems in less than perfect control. A woman as bright as Lee would never settle for so threadbare a publisher for her memoir or be as excited as Medwed makes her out to be on publication day. But these are minor caveats in an enjoyable read that could provoke both smiles and tears.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Lee writes a memoir of her larger-than-life grandmother, Marguerite, and their trip through Europe when Lee was 18. Just when Marguerite's quest for the spotlight threatens to overwhelm her, Lee finds her first love in England with Simon. After her parents' unexpected death, she finds comfort with Ben, a hometown boy whom her grandmother dismisses as ordinary. Now, 25 years later, Lee is married to Ben with three grown children and content with her life in her small college town in Maine, but thoughts of Simon keep intruding. Her book gets what amounts to comical treatment from her ditzy publisher, and somehow her triumph gets lost in the greater spectacle of life. Ben encourages her, but he is working on his magnum opus about a local Revolutionary-era logger, an undertaking that overshadows her more modest volume. So Lee decides to visit Simon because, although Ben has been a great husband, she still wonders about the road not taken. This witty and diverting, even enchanting, look at middle age should make Medwed a household name. Patty Engelmann
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; First edition (June 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446530794
• ISBN-13: 978-0446530798
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,707,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Left Me Wanting To Chug The Bismol, August 1, 2005

By 

Leigh A. Taft (Mobile, AL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The End of an Error (Hardcover)

I feel so strange! I am the only reviewer thus far to give a rating less than 5 stars! Perhaps I need to be in a different place in my life with my children grown to really get it. Or, to have left a love behind not by choice, but from forced events.
I adored the tale of Lee's grandmother Marguerite & their odd, yet endearing relationship to one another.
I was romanticized (obviously!) by Lee's thoughts to re-visit her first love if given the chance. Not only does she think fondly of "what if", she conspires & makes those events take place.
I think Medwed is a really good writer, but I was so bothered by Lee's callousness towards her loving husband, and, in a way, Simon, too, that I'd feel funny giving this 5 stars. I grew tired of the way Lee would try & rationalize & justify her behavior in that poor-pitiful-me-stance. Her husband remained steadfast until the very end. Speaking of ending- that had to confirm my 3 stars! I won't give anything away, but I'm just thinking: "How many times do you have to run face-first into the glass window before you realize the damn thing's double-paned & locked to boot?!!"
I am curious as to find another reader who shares my opinions on this book. Is there something I missed here to make it great, worthy of the 5 stars??
In this genre of fiction, I would recommend Anita Shreve's "Resistance" instead of this. It's a complex, star-crossed love story set in painful, turbulent times.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny, smart, undeniably moving!, June 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The End of an Error (Hardcover)

I've adored Medwed's work ever since the exhilarating "Mail", and this one is her most irresistible. Lee Emery is middle-aged, happily married, and she's written a book about the path --and the person-- not taken--a life with her first love Simon(already I'm hooked.) Amidst the memories of that love, we also read about her glamorous grandmother Marguerite (one of the most magnificent literary creations I've encountered!)Impulsively, Lee sends the book to Simon, turning everything in her life upside down. Told in sparkling prose, the book had melaughing out loud in parts and reaching for the box of tissues in others. And to me, a novel that can make you do both is a masterpiece indeed.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Witty and Wonderful, June 12, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The End of an Error (Hardcover)

Mameve's tale of lost love is both heartbreaking and hilarious --and absolutely terrific. No one writes the way she does! The prose dances and glints right off the page. I loved this witty, wonderful book.