Fly Away Home [Hardcover]

Marge Piercy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1984

Successful Boston cookbook author Daria Walker, whose greatest pleasures are her home and family -- and who loves her husband deeply -- is devastated to learn he wants a divorce. Now she must put her life back together. But as she strives to understand the life she is losing, Daria must face the shocking truth behind the smooth facade of her prominent attorney-husband, Ross -- and recreate her own values, her own sense of family, and herself.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Successful Boston cookbook author Daria Walker, whose greatest pleasures are her home and family -- and who loves her husband deeply -- is devastated to learn he wants a divorce. Now she must put her life back together. But as she strives to understand the life she is losing, Daria must face the shocking truth behind the smooth facade of her prominent attorney-husband, Ross -- and recreate her own values, her own sense of family, and herself. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Chatto & Windus (June 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0701139269
• ISBN-13: 978-0701139261
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,423,103 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One woman's journey to find herself, March 30, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Fly Away Home (Mass Market Paperback)

As a man, my review of this book may be somewhat biased, but on the whole, I have to say that this is the best book I've read in a long time about any individual's personal quest to discover who he or she is.
Daria Walker is a cookbook writer who enjoys some small fame in the Boston area, and (this is important to the story) who also comes from a working-class background. Her husband, Ross, can be best described as the scum of the earth - he married Daria simply because he saw her as an ornament to his life and career, but now he's met a plain-looking woman who happens to be incredibly rich, and he's also involved himself with several shady (to put it mildly) business deals, one of which involves burning out the tenants of buildings he owns in Daria's old neighborhood. But he doesn't actually own them; Daria does, and....well, this gets very complicated.
The point here is that Daria gradually discovers all this, and it shatters her. She has to rebuild her life from the ground up, and finds unlikely allies in the tenants of these buildings. Ms. Piercy makes you believe that Daria is a real person, that this isn't just a piece of fiction. Daria, and all the characters in this book, come to incredibly vivid life. The greatest compliment I can pay to this novel is that I wish Ms. Piercy would write another one with these characters - which, considering that this book is over ten years old, she may well have done. I'd very much like to know what else happens to Daria, Tom, and all the other people in this world Marge Piercy has created. The rating of 9 is only because I detected a stiffness at times in the language of her characters - but that's a very minor detraction in an otherwise excellent book

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Favorite Piercy Book, March 22, 2000

By 

MAS (Vermont) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fly Away Home (Mass Market Paperback)

This is Ms. Piercy's best book--I've read it more than once, and wish she would write a sequel to it. Daria Walker is a character I relate to--a woman who learns to live on her own, and has a better life because of it.

5.0 out of 5 stars Woman coming of age after marriage, January 17, 2006

By 

Karen Crockett (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fly Away Home (Mass Market Paperback)

The primary character, Daria, has been married for 20+ years and slowly comes to realize how unaware she has been of who she is and begins to question her view of her reality as that reality breaks apart.

A great book for currently divorcing or recently divorced women. Hard to put down, and wonderful characters throughout. I especially enjoyed Piercy's characterization of Daria's new beau and the relationship and intimacy they develop together, consciously avoiding the mistakes they made in their first marriages.