The author of Kinflicks narrates the story of a Tennessee woman who comes of age during the 1950s and 1960s, suffers the early death of her mother, and has relationships with a gay man and a married woman. Reprint. Tour.
Five Minutes in Heaven
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle.
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
How a woman discovers her sexual identity is the theme of Alther's fifth novel, a work of admirable ambition but only tepid interest. Growing up in Tennessee during the 1950s, Jude subsumes her sorrow at her mother's death and her physician father's remoteness by a tomboyish, then latently erotic bonding with her best friend Molly. Molly dies. Ten years later, living in New York while attending graduate school at Columbia, Jude falls in love with another childhood friend, Sandy, who takes her to bed although he is gay. After Sandy, too, becomes a "graveyard love," Jude, now a book editor in a publishing house, has a grand passion with poet/teacher Anna, who also is doomed to pass from her life. Finally, in Paris, Jude achieves an epiphany that allows her to accept her sexual nature and her future. Readers looking for the humor and dash of Kinflicks will be disappointed here; only rarely does Alther's plodding recital of Jude's unhappy existence admit flashes of wit. Instead, the prose is surprisingly graceless and often clumsy. Readers may be moved to laughter by the number of times characters are defined by their eye colors. Great significance accrues to the fact that one character's eyes are "like licorice throat lozenges"; another's "cat's eyes were flashing chartreuse"; and another's are like "miniature blueberry pies... around each pupil was a tiny translucent golden ring like a butter rum life saver." As Jude "earns her spurs in the rodeo of l'amour," her "gift for suffering" like Alther's eye-fixation, becomes tiresome. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
The best-selling author of Bedrock (LJ 9/1/90) returns with this tale of a young woman's sexual awakening.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Lisa Alther is the bestselling author of five novels, among them the critically acclaimed Kinflicks, and a family memoir, Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree. She was born in Kingsport, Tennessee, in 1944, one of five children in a close-knit family influenced by both its Southern and "Yankee" roots. After attending Wellesley College and working in book publishing, she moved to Vermont, where she began to write and raise her daughter. Alther currently divides her time among Tennessee, Vermont, and New York City.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Totally, TOTALLY gripping,
By A Customer
This review is from: Five Minutes in Heaven (Paperback)
I can see why some readers would be put off by this book. The stress on feminism and lesbianism is insistent (though not nearly as unsubtly so as in some of Alther's other books), and the characters are quite cliched - polite Southerners, aloof Northerners, sensitive gays, sophisticated but tricky Parisians and the like. At the same time, the passion and love that are the book's main subject and the light, understatedly dramatic writing style used to depict them are such that the reader will forget about the cliches and be drawn into the story, which is totally, totally gripping. Like the love it describes, Alther's novel has a haunting, obsessive quality which I have seldom seen surpassed in other works of fiction. A modern classic!
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Made a stone butch cry,
By A Customer
This review is from: Five Minutes in Heaven (Paperback)
This novel was OUTSTANDING. I haven't read anything that was so emotionally gripping in a long time. Anyone who is/has been struggling to find The One will be able to relate. This book touches all of us in that it expresses a very strong desire in all of us (or at least MOST of us) to find a mutually-satisfying, healthy, LTR. And yes, reading this book made me cry, and I never cry. ;
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enticing, enjoyable novel...,
By
This review is from: Five Minutes in Heaven (Paperback)
I found "Five Minutes In Heaven" to be a compelling and enjoyable read. This novel was intriguing, even if a bit dark. The story was somewhat sophisticated and off the beaten path, which is what I liked about it, though not everyone would relate. This definitely isn't a book that stays within the confines of "mainstream" perspective. Rather, it explores sexuality and a woman's search for love, as well as for her self, from a place that exists outside conventional, conservative dogma. Because of that, I found it refreshing, unique and terrific.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
So You'd Like to...
|
|
