The Generosity of Women [Hardcover]

Courtney Eldridge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2009

MEET:

Joyce, the foul-mouthed and wildly successful curator of a controversial art exhibit on surveillance, who unexpectedly finds herself under surveillance—in her own bedroom.

Her best friend, Bobbie, a gynecologist—driven, poised, and in control—a woman who finally finds love at fiftysomething and watches, horrified, as her perfectly ordered world crumbles around her.

Bobbie’s patient, Lisa, a former juvenile offender and habitual runaway, who once dreamed of fame working as Joyce’s gallery assistant and is now struggling with her new identity as a banker’s wife and doting mother.
Lisa’s sister, Lynne, a middle-aged suburban mother whose penchant for home decorating conceals her troubled marriage and blinding desire to exact revenge for a childhood injustice.

Jordan, Lynne’s sixteen-year-old daughter, a former straight-A student and aspiring model who, no longer fitting in at school or at home, takes a part-time job at a supermarket to spite her mother—and finds a close confidant in her thirtyyear-old male boss.

(20090416)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Eldridge's first novel (after the collection Unkempt) grinds its sparse plot into the ground by revisiting the same incidents over and over again from the points of view of six women. Joyce, one of New York's most successful and controversial art dealers, and Bobbie, a gynecologist who sometimes performs abortions, have been friends since college. But their friendship is sorely tested by the events of one long weekend when Bobbie's adopted daughter, Adela, arrives in New York to meet Paul, her mother's new boyfriend, and to reveal some secrets of her own. At the same time, new mother Lisa, one of Joyce's former assistants, helps her older sister, Lynne, after Lynne's teenage daughter, Jordan, goes to Bobbie for an abortion. The rotating first-person narration underscores the characters' profound narcissism, but the gaggle of voices becomes tiresome as it moves among the women's self-centered ruminations and justifications of their questionable behavior. The way Eldridge obscures the story's critical details until the waning pages feels manipulative, while how she repeatedly explores the periphery of a few key events is, at best, tedious. (June)
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From Booklist

Six women tell their interconnected stories, in their own voices. At first, the snippets come too quickly to keep track of the different characters, but as the book progresses, each character becomes clear and her story compelling. Joyce and Bobbie are lifelong best friends and dedicated professionals. Their friendship and Bobbie’s ob-gyn practice stand at the hub of the story’s wheel. When Bobbie’s daughter, Adela, confesses to an almost unforgivable transgression, the women must struggle to keep their friendship and their relationship with Adela. Meanwhile, perfect suburban mom Lynne’s facade is slowly cracking as her teenage daughter Jordan struggles with her own identity. Lynne’s once-wayward sister, now a new mom, ties the two plotlines together. Giving each woman her own voice has some mixed results. For example, Lynne and Lisa are clearly defined, but Jordan’s teenspeak quickly wears thin. Still, most readers will find someone to identify with in this perfect book-club read. --Marta Segal Block

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (June 2, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 015101101X
• ISBN-13: 978-0151011018
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,438,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting characters, confusing narrators, May 8, 2009

By 

Kristen (Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Generosity of Women (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

The Generosity of Women is a novel that follows the lives of a group of neurotic, confused, and fragmented New York City women. Each has a unique voice and compelling story, and the novel is told using each voice as a separate narrator. First of all, let me say that I normally enjoy novels with multiple narrators; however, Courtney Eldridge's novel takes the concept a bit too far. The narrators shift so rapidly that it takes quite a bit of time to really get a grasp on who they are and what they're about. Just when I would think that I was getting somewhere with one character/narrator, the narrative would shift to another. Keep in mind that I'm not talking about pages here; I'm talking about paragraphs. I guess this style of writing is supposed to mirror the constant camera angle shifts found within other types of media, but it does not appeal to me. The concept is refreshing, but it somehow misses the mark.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I Love the Title and the Cover Art!, September 3, 2009

By 

Mad Ethyl Flint (St Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Generosity of Women (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

But I couldn't finish the book. The description already tells you that the book is about 4 women friends, although it doesn't really seem to me they are really friends, and their interactions.

I couldn't finish this book because it's written in dialogue. Like listening to half a phone conversation or someone talking to a psychiatrist. The book goes back and forth with these dialogues that tell the story. But so far I haven't been able to find a real story and the characters bored me.

This might have been a good book had it been written differently, but as it is, I became bored pretty quickly.

Thank you.

MEF

If this type of writing appeals to you, then you may like this book.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Awkward and confusing, August 27, 2009

By 

Maudeen Wachsmith "BeachReader" (Port Townsend, WA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Generosity of Women (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I love books dealing with women and their friendships. And when I read the blurb for this book I thought it would be the book for me. However the reality of reading (or attempting to read) this book was tedious and awkward. While I usually love alternating points of view, in previous books each chapter has been from a different POV. In this book we have the characters of Joyce, Robbie, Lisa, Lynne, Jordan, and Adela changing every paragraph. It's hard enough to keep six women straight without further confusing the situation in this manner. And there were no quotation marks (I have seen this before in books attempting to be more "literary") and that threw me off as well. In the end, I gave it my 50-100 page test and it was so unengaging, I didn't even care to skim the last 250 pages as I will sometimes. It is beyond me how some books get published. Obviously her agent and editor enjoyed it and thought it would sell, but this one just isn't one I'd recommend.