Customer Reviews

Laura Rider's Masterpiece [With Headphones]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

Laura Rider's Masterpiece is a satirical love/lust triangle of sorts mixed with a character study in novel form. The triangle involves Laura Rider, an aspiring novelist and successful garden business owner; her husband, Charlie, whom everyone in their small Wisconsin town thinks is gay, but whose main gift in life is his sexual prowess; and Jenna Faroli, a local turned syndicated public radio show host who has moved to town because it is equidistant between the radio station and her judge husband's courthouse. Laura idolizes Jenna, and is eager to start a friendship.

I love Jane Hamilton's novels, but one of my favorite things about her novels is that it's always easy to relate to the characters, regardless of their background. Laura Rider's Masterpiece started off well. I was instantly intrigued with Laura's wit and honesty as a narrator. Her description of small-town life was comedic and spot-on. As the narrative shifted to Jenna as the narrator, I again found myself mesmerized by her experiences and perspective.

As the novel wore on (and it's hard to say it wore on at all, given it's only 214 pages), it became more satirical, which made the characters less accessible. I was torn between feeling sorry for them and not caring about how things turned out. For such a great start, I did not enjoy the second half of the book. The setup was more enjoyable than the fulfillment. I really wanted to like this novel, and I loved the first half of it, but ultimately, it was underwhelming.

Laura Rider's Masterpiece is the story of Laura, an aspiring writer, her affable and henpecked husband, Charlie, and the object of their affection, local radio personality Janna Faroli. The book is described as a "full-blown comedy", but the humor is of the driest, darkest variety. The story reads like a doomed love affair, in that we meet the three main characters and see them as shining with potential, but as they are revealed in their entirety, we see that they are in fact boring, tawdry, clueless, pretentious and just plain thoughtless individuals. At the end, there is none of the initial infatuation and plenty of "I can't wait to be done with you" disgust. I didn't find the comedy in watching these three idiots (yes, I said it) tear apart their lives, but I don't laugh when I drive by a train wreck either. I appreciated Jane Hamilton's writing style much more in The Book of Ruth; Ruth is at least noble in her suffering. I picked this one up on a whim at the library, and had hopes that it would combine Jane Hamilton's beautiful writing with a good laugh- not so.

How can a good author even bother to publish such drivel? This is in no way comparable to any previous Jane Hamilton books. Although the premise is amusing, the book ultimately goes nowhere and lacks the depth and story line of her previous works. I really hate to see an author start publishing just to publish. It irks me to pick up a book by an author I've read before and find myself let down so completely.

Laura Rider leads an ordinary Midwestern life. She and her husband Charlie own and run a thriving nursery and neither one of them have ever strayed far from their hometowns, let alone Wisconsin. Laura is gifted at designing beautiful gardens and Charlie does the heavy lifting and is gifted at making love. She enjoys gardening, but she harbors a secret desire to write a romance novel. She sees no irony in the fact that she wants to write romance novels when she refuses to sleep with Charlie because he wears her out. When Jenna Faroli, a Wisconsin NPR host whom Laura idolizes, moves to Hartley, Laura sees and seizes the opportunity to make her dreams come true.

All is not what it seems in Laura Rider's Masterpiece. Laura Rider is a deliciously unreliable narrator. My first clue that something was not quite right took place at the Garden Club meeting. She was thinking about how badly a relationship with one of the member's brothers ended. Two traumatic things happened as a result that caused her to leave town for a year, but they are mentioned almost as an after thought. I stopped and re-read that section to make sure that I read it correctly. Time and distance diminishes pain, but there was something unsettling about how removed she was from her own past.

After Laura returned to town, she did all that she could to ensure that she remained in control. She didn't marry Charlie so much because she loved him as that she could make him heel. He wasn't one to create waves when she what was best for their business and made plans for its future. He simply provided the muscle needed to get the job done. Despite the fact that she was no longer sleeping with him, allowing her to be in control enabled him to stay young at heart. When she encourages Charlie to develop a friendship with Jenna, it's as if she is throwing him a bone for being such a loyal companion. Laura is a psychopathic gardener, planting and fertilizing her seeds to suit her own designs, then ruthlessly ripping the plants out of the ground when she finds that they've borne fruit. It is difficult to say whether it would be best to be on her bad side or her good side. Laura doesn't make a distinction.

Laura Rider's Masterpiece is an unusual novel. When Jenna was introduced, her almost condescending world view seemed as much out of place in Hartley as it was with the novel. Laura saw Jenna as her every woman, but to me she stuck out like a sore thumb. However, from the moment I caught a glimpse of what Jane Hamilton was be doing with the story, I couldn't and didn't want to turn back. I was hooked. With the exception of Charlie, a character I adored from the beginning, my opinions and attitudes about Laura and Jenna radically shifted from the beginning to the end. All of these elements combined for a refreshing read. If you enjoy novels with untrustworthy and perhaps antisocial narrators, this is a book you should pick up. The lingering chill from Laura's icy heart will help keep you cool this summer.

http://literatehousewife.com/2009/04/152-laura-riders-masterpiece/

I'm not going to recap the entire plot for you, that's what the item description is for. I'm also not going to use big words to pretend I'm some kind of literary genius. I'm just a regular, married, mom of 2 who has been in love with books since I was 4 years old.

So, here it goes....

This has got to be one of the *worst* books I've ever read. I can't believe that anyone has given this more than 2 stars, but maybe it's because I simply could not force myself to read past page 24.

It's like the author was certifiably insane, & over the course of several years jotted down all of her racing, disjointed, crazy-ass thoughts & later shaped a story around them.

The book is nothing but sentence after sentence of the kind MomofSons quoted. The characters are shallow & judgmental- exactly the kind of people I hate.

And the entire premise of the book - that a husband would accept a wife's sudden decision that they will never have sex again - is laughable. She certainly didn't have any other redeeming qualities.

If you insist on reading this drivel, at least check it out from the library instead of spending your hard-earned dough.

I am puzzled by some of the responses here to the LOL funny and smart Laura Rider's Masterpiece. I think the ratings vary so because Jane Hamilton has always straddled two audiences--- the "juicy Oprah novel" crew and her literary following. This book is openly sophisticated and is really about adultery (think John Updike on helium) and the craft of writing--- subjects that appeal more to the Wink wink knowing (and probing and wondering) crowd of writers and critical readers. This book had me snorting with its satirical humor and insights into art and marriage and culture and, yes, class. Essentially, it rocked! I don't usually write Amazon.com reviews, but it bothered me to see this unique book misunderstood.

I finished this late last night and went to sleep thinking about it. I wasn't sure how I felt, how I was supposed to feel. There were characters I liked in the beginning, (You had me at NPR.) but I didn't like any of them in the end. They were all such egotists that I couldn't feel happy or sad for anyone. I had read a couple of other novels by Jane Hamilton before and recall now that they were full of unlikeable people also. This one just sounded like it would be a fun read, and I think it was marketed that way. I think that was a huge mistake on the part of whoever makes that decision.

There were a few chuckles. I laughed at the image of a western woman empathizing with a middle eastern woman whose husband is an underachiever. All in all, the best part of this book is its length.

I read this book fairly quickly, though skimmed several parts that were particularly dull and dry, like when you were in Jenna's husband intellectual mind. I could see why Jenna was bored with her husband. It bored me just reading that part. The thing that disturbed me was the set-up of the whole affair in the first place. It might have been funny if it wasn't so sad.

While the story may be satire, I found it a bit disturbing, to say the least. Same with some of the crass language, but at least it was a bit more sparse than the previous book I never finished. This story took a sad situation...two married people who were needing affection and sex in their marriage, and made it into a twisted tale that was hard to stop reading, and yet twisted at the same time. I kept hoping things would improve and there would be some redemption or satisfying ending. It just ended like most secular books...a real bummer.

So I give it two stars because I kept reading until I finished the story... making it "just okay" but found the message to be quite unsatisfying. Granted, I get that satire pokes fun at things, and that did make it entertaining. Plus, there was a suspenseful component as you waited for them to get busted. I guess I just didn't find the fact that two unhappy married people found temporary gratification in someone else's spouse, and then returned to their formerly sad and neglected lives all that entertaining.

There is no message of hope, just a resolution of two people living with "just a friend until death do us part" after having a wild excursion on the other side to the point of insanity. Sad, really. The story was not inspiring in the least. It didn't motivate me to be a better person, but rather made me want to sigh and I felt like the situation was hopeless...because it was. However, I did finish the book, so the author is able to deliver a readable tale, making this story mildly acceptable.

How often to you get to read a book where you laugh aloud while reading? Not that often. This book is funny. We make fun of marriage, adultery, the art of writing, even gardening. It is delightful and reminds me of Moliere.
P.S. E-mail is a central character. Another book by Francine Prose, I think, featured e mail, a son read his Mom's messages to/from her boyfriend but I do not know of other books where e mail is so crucial.