Lucy Crocker 2.0: A Novel [Paperback]

Caroline Preston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 8, 2001

Nobody could have predicted that Lucy Crocker, former children's librarian and unabashed computer ignoramus, would be the one to save the family's software company. Nevertheless, that's exactly what happens when she unexpectedly brainstorms a fantasy computer game called Maiden's Quest. Suddenly, Lucy's a cyber-guru. But now trouble is brewing in the Crocker family. Lucy is having trouble producing the Maiden's Quest sequel. Then she discovers that her husband is receiving erotic messages from their publicity director, and the kids are ogling smut on the Internet. Lucy decides that it's time to escape the modern world and flee into the wilderness, with unexpected and hilarious results.

Preston's wit, insight, and light touch are on full display in this novel about the comic and not so comic effects of technology on life and love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A family of computer programming nerds in Crowley, Mass., repair their marital dysfunction and domestic alienation by rediscovering the great outdoors in a blandly amusing, gently ironic tale from the author of Jackie by Josie. Former librarian Lucy Crocker is the inadvertently famous designer of the popular computer fantasy adventure Maiden Quest. Lucy is a fine artist and knows little about computers, but her game has made her husband Ed's company, Crocker Software, a big hit. Ed, a math genius with a pony tail, is having a hard time motivating his wife to bring out Maiden Quest's long-awaited sequel; exasperated by Lucy's procrastination, and bored after 15 years of marriage, Ed finds comfort in the tantric massages of his take-charge publicity director, Ingrid Bascom. Meanwhile, the Crockers' insufferably geeky 13-year-old twin sons, Benjy and Phil, have started their own computer company. When Lucy figures out how to read e-mail, she learns of her husband's dalliance and discovers that her sons are giggling at dirty pictures online. So the boys, who'd never dream of trading their hard drive for a Sunday drive in the country, get shipped off to the wilderness survival camp in Wisconsin that Lucy attended every summer as a teenager. The kids manage to tough it out, Lucy has a fling with a mountain man and the story climaxes in a predictable convergence on Little Lost Lake. There aren't many surprises here, but Preston's story bubbles along cheerfully, thanks to her evident enjoyment in her tale. This offers lighthearted fun for readers interested in the humorous clash between high-tech lifestyles and old-fashioned domesticity. BOMC and QPB alternates. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The titular heroine of Preston's second novel, a children's librarian and a technophobe, creates a computer game that establishes the Crocker Software company financially. Lucy is an outward success--not only is her creation "Maiden's Quest" a best seller but her twin sons run a lucrative hardware installation business they began while in fourth grade. Inwardly, however, Lucy's life is a mess: her marriage and motherhood feel like failures. She discovers that Ed is having an affair with his nasty publicity director and catches the boys downloading pornography off the Internet. Lucy snatches her sons and retreats to what she hopes will be a purer existence in the lake regions of Wisconsin and Canada. Amusing caricatures abound--for example, Corky, Lucy's intensely shallow mother. Librarians will find their portrayal only slightly more flattering than Corky's. Lucy faces one setback after another as she settles into her parents' backwoods cabin. Nonetheless, zany mishaps spark the revival of her family ties and of Crocker bank accounts. Light entertainment with a message: Do what you love, and money, fame, and happiness may (if you're lucky) follow. Preston's first novel, Jackie by Josie, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. For most public library collections.
-Joyce W. Smothers, Monmouth Cty. Lib., Manalapan, NJ
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (May 8, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684854503
• ISBN-13: 978-0684854502
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,360,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

As a girl growing up in Lake Forest, Illinois, Caroline Preston used to pore through her grandmother's and mother's scrapbooks and started collecting antique scrapbooks when she was in high school. She majored in American Studies at Dartmouth College, and received a master's in American Civilization from Brown University. Inspired by her interest in manuscripts and ephemera, she worked as an archivist at the Rhode Island Historical Society, the Peabody/Essex Museum and Harvard's Houghton Library.

Preston is the author of three previous novels. "Jackie by Josie," a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, was drawn from her (brief) researching stint for a Jackie O. biography. "Gatsby's Girl" chronicles F. Scott Fitzgerald's first girlfriend who was the model for Daisy Buchanan. In "The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt," she has drawn from her own collection of vintage ephemera to create a novel in the unique form of a scrapbook.

Preston has been awarded a Massachusetts Artist Foundation Fellowship and has had residencies at Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Ragdale, where she is a Distinguished Artist. She lives with her husband, the writer Christopher Tilghman, in Charlottesville, Virginia and has three mostly grown-up sons.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Winning story, a cut above the rest, April 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Lucy Crocker 2.0: A Novel (Hardcover)

I've been looking forward to a new Caroline Preston since I read Jackie by Josie a few years ago. (If you haven't read that yet, do so -- wonderful book.) Ms. Preston balances a wide range of issues here in dealing with the modern American family: the role of technology in family, difficulties between parents and teenagers, work versus home, the price of success. She raises Thoreau's Walden as a potential model -- but then challenges it as well, instead pleading for balance between old and new.

With so much on her plate, it's not surprising that Ms. Preston loses track of a few of her storylines: the entry of an old boyfriend late in the game seems forced, and neither the reader nor Lucy benefits from the exchange. Further, Ms. Preston tells the story in alternating viewpoints between three of the four family members; the fourth character, one of the sons, seems oddly two-dimensional by comparison.

But despite these shortcomings, Lucy is a charming, engaging and well-told story, which I read in just a few sittings. Ms. Preston, how's the next one coming?

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sharp, smart look at domestic life, ca 2000, June 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Lucy Crocker 2.0: A Novel (Hardcover)

Lucy Crocker 2.0 is an even better book than Preston's wonderful Jackie by Josie. It has the same strengths, memorable characters, a gentle ironic spin, and a satisfyingly concluded plot, but she's focusing here on our dot.com, web-enabled, screen-obsessed world, and asking whether we shouldn't chuck them all out the door and head for the woods. That's what Lucy does, and the result is fun to read and full of insight.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Where's the humor?ZZZZzzzz!, August 7, 2000

By 

"ladygriff" (Hillsboro, OR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lucy Crocker 2.0: A Novel (Hardcover)

I loved Caroline Preston's "Jackie by Josie", but I was extremely disappointed by "Lucy Crocker 2.0". Lucy struggles with marital problems, miscarriages, and bratty kids. She doesn't find any humor in her situation and neither can the reader. Since Lucy nearly always plays the victim, she doesn't make an exciting heroine. Lucy plods through life and isn't perceptive enough (or is too depressed) to sense deception. At her own software company, she is unceremoniously demoted to consultant because she is oblivious to office politics. Her conniving brother swindles her out of twenty thousand dollars and she lets him off the hook. Her ex-boyfriend easily manipulates her into helping him commit a crime. Her own children fabricate a ridiculous story about their early release from summer camp and she believes them. Lucy may be a talented artist and a skilled outdoorswoman, but in terms of relationships she's a wimp and just about everyone around her takes advantage of this fact. Despite a tan and a new hairdo, Lucy isn't any different at the end of her journey. If you're looking for a funny novel with snappy dialog and interesting female characters, then I would recommend Jane Heller's "Name Dropping" or Adriana Trigiani's "Big Stone Gap".