Customer Reviews

Goodbye Without Leaving

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read this book the first time 10 years ago. It is neither the best-written nor most important novel I have read during that time but it sticks with me more than any other and I return to it again and again. I think this is because it speaks about how to learn that you are a grown-up when you perceive yourself as the younger, perhaps more adventurous and brave soul you were in the past. As a parent, wife, teacher one often feels consumed by roles that are not our "essence". Colwin has shown me that those parts of us can grow together and let us be as brave and as open as our past selves. The added plus is that all of us who imagined (?imagine) a life as a back-up singer for any musician can feel a little less crazy.

A wonderful telling of the ambiguity common to many young women in the 1990s: to be strong but perhaps lonely, or give in to love? Is it possible to be committed to another person and still be independent? How does one find her way to a happy medium? A terrific antidote to the Ally McBeal/Sex & the City portrayal of women as desperate for a man, or obsessed by relationship anxiety. It is horribly sad that we won't have more from Colwin.

Say you want to live a marginal life. What better than to be the only white chick in an otherwise all-black girl band, Ruby Shakely and the Shakettes?

But imagine this: you eventually find yourself married and pregnant, resisting your family's all-out attempts to pull you into the mainstream where they feel you should be. Now that you've taken on such grown-up responsibilities, how do you keep your marginal dreams alive?

Volunteer to research black music and make friends with the only mother you can find who isn't wearing a sweatshirt with puffy sheep on it! In fact, you may not believe it, but you can love parenting and still wear leopard-skin tights.

This book rekindled my hope that getting older doesn't mean giving in. Somebody's got to support those makers of pink sweatshirts, but it ain't gonna be me! <P

I first discovered Laurie Colwin within the pages of Gourmet magazine about 15 years ago. With pleasure, I awaited each issue to see if another of her wonderful columns would appear. Then, in 1992 came the sad announcement of her untimely death at age 48. It was then that I discovered she wasn't only a food writer of incomparable wit and wisdom; she was also a novelist. So I began reading everything she'd written. My favorites are A Big Storm Knocked It Over and this one, Goodbye Without Leaving.
Geraldine Coleshares gives up grad school at the Univ of Chicago to become the only white backup singer for a R&B group, the Shakettes. Her days with the band, life on the bus and on the road, make everything that comes after (marriage, kids, a job) pale by comparison. Told mostly in retrospect, Geraldine's story is a never-boring exploration of such potential clichés as family, friendship, career, parenthood, and love.
Terrific. Read it, and then read her other ones.

Though a Laurie Colwin devotee, it took me three or four tries to get into "Goodbye without Leaving." Now, however, it is my favorite of all of her novels, and I turn to it like an old friend. Geraldine's struggle for harmony is simultaneously amusing and poignant. Though the book does not include the anguish of "Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object" and "Family Happiness" or the buoyant fairy tale quality of "Happy All the Time," it addresses the fundamental worries of family, friendship, religion, career, and love without resorting to cliche. A tender and abiding story that resonates deeply.

I am an unabashed Laurie Colwin fan. I love all of her books and have read them over and over. And I own her books in multiple copies. I do not feel secure unless I know where my Colwin books are. In fact, I'm ordering two more copies of "Home Cooking" today.

This is one of my favorite Colwin books. Geraldine is a totally sympathetic character who just has a hard time growing up, even after she gets married and has a baby. This book has what I consider one of the best sentences ever written. Her family history is rife with accomplishment, but she is a failed graduate student. Geraldine is going home to tell her parents that she is joining a black rock band as a white backup singer. She says, "Against this family tapestry I stood foursquare to announce my plans." The story unfolds with typical Colwin magic.

I only wish Laurie Colwin had lived longer so we could have more of her books. It's hard to believe she died almost 20 years ago. If you love good writing, spare and evocative prose, and memorable characters, you'll love all of her books.

I've read and reread all of Colwin's books and this is the one I've come to identify with and like the most. All of Colwin's wit, humanity, and inventiveness is here in a quirky but believable story about a young woman whose experience as a backup singer comes back to haunt her the rest of her life.

Strange to say, I did not like this novel nearly as much as her earlier work. I usually find her narrative voice and her attention to detail charming and engaging, but here it bogged down and just became tedious. There are no fully-drawn characters, only types, including the heroine (or should I say "hairoyne" -- from a motif in the novel) herself. And, while I found the dilemmas of her earlier characters regarding marriage and identity quite moving, especially in "Another Marvelous Thing" and "Family Happiness," I found Geraldine's crises to border on the selfish and self-absorbed. Who knows what might have followed this swan song? For all of that, I do love Colwin, and I still cook from her cookbooks.

I came here to buy this book, and realized I've never reviewed it.
I find the first paragraph a stumbling block-- Laurie Colwin is growing up?- but after that almost everything about this novel (the writing especially) leaves me speechless. The notion that she is the white Shakette, the images of dancing and hanging out with the band-- or buying the record, "I've Got What it Takes, But it Breaks my hear to give it away," it's all skillfully done.
I almost feel as if we share the same soul. Laurie loved cooking and food, and dancing and R&B.

And she knew how to put it all down on paper.
Goodbye Without Leaving: perhaps the title says it all. Still, I miss her.

I must be one of the few people who don't get Laurie Colwin. Her food commentary leaves me indifferent, I'm not crazy about her receipes and her novels all seem to be the same semi-adolescent whine. This was her last novel, and the same themes are repeated. A sense of drift, searching for identity, and painfull mother bashing. I read this in the hopes that she really was going to grow up at some point. I was wrong. Her whole career seemed to be built on searching for a "grown up" identity that never came.