Customer Reviews

Now You Know: A Novel

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

 

 

This story left me both exhilarated and downcast. The first from the incredible storytelling and the characters, the second because I realize how little I know. No one I've read has managed to see feminine relationships with the kind of penetrating sympathy that Susan Kelly does. Nevertheless, they engaged me instantly. I had to know how Frances and Libba could possibly become friends. The dialogue is beyond expert because it is so consistently touching.
For the suburban settings I had to use my imagination along with what I've seen since we've lived here in a small southern city. In the Creek Cabin settings, I could see every detail and savor every scent. What was better than all that was the intricate rhythms of the relationships. Not to belabor the point--I loved the book. Of Kelly's three novels,I now place this first in my affections.

It is unusual for a friendship to last a life time on a close basis. Susan Kelly
is really descriptive of not only people, but of locations. It was a very readable
book, that I didn't want to put down.

I just finished this book and can't say enough good things about it. Susan Kelly is an awesome writer, and this story has so many interesting characters and such a great plot that I really couldn't put it down once I started it. I plan to get copies for my two sisters. I can't wait to start The Last of Something.

What a wonderful book that explores women's friendships and the relationship of a mother and her daughters (from the daughters point of views). It touches on many emotions - love, happiness, sadness and realizing that one is in control of one's own destiny. Could not put it down!

The book I received was in excellent condition---like new---& I am very pleased with the purchase & would order from this seller again.

Written by a woman, about five women, and apparently meant to be read only by women, NOW YOU KNOW is one of those tiresome, heavy-handed novels with a plot that take place over years of (usually monied, usually white) women's lives. It's the kind of "woman's" novel that badly wants to be revelatory, but -at least to me- always ends up glaringly contrived and overblown. This is a slice-of-life novel gone stale because it never was really alive or fresh in the first place.

Libba, the free-spirit eventual writer, and Frances, the tradition-bound mother figure, form a friendship at their college, circa 1947, a friendship which continues through the whole of their lives. If the name Libba wasn't a pointed enough hint, this character never changes a hair throughout the story, except to become more and more annoying, intrusive and ridiculous. Libba shamelessly mines Frances's married life and her children's lives as copy for her novels - the life Libba is too selfishly incapable of giving a try. Heaven forbid anything should come between her and her writing - especially a mature and loving relationship. I felt sorry for Frances's daughters, who have this bull-flopper inflicted upon them all their lives, and even after their mother's death.

The daughter-characters are as stereotypical as their mother-figures: Alice, the oldest, repeating her mother's organization and traditionalism with her kids, and secretly feeling the pull of a more 'liberated' life, especially as her children grow older; Allegra, the alcoholic who's shambled through marriage & motherhood, who's now finally trying to sober up; Edie, the youngest who's still helpless like a baby, can't make a decision because she's been coddled all her life... The lack of ANY humor or joy whatsoever in these women's lives is unreal.

Male characters exist over time in NOW YOU KNOW, but they don't offer any consolation to these women. They are there to be slept with, or not; to father children, or not. Once, during a particular crisis, a man is there to lend a brief shoulder of support. But really all that matters to these women is their relationship with each other, forever and ever. Men contribute next to nothing emotionally - only women can relate to women in the world of NOW YOU KNOW. The younger women's lives are on stagnant hold after Frances dies - only Libba can set them all free for the next stage, once they're gathered 'round her, with her predictable Big Secret now revealed. There's an unbelievably tidy ending wrapped around a pointed reference to Charlotte's Web ("She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and good writer. Charlotte {read: Libba} was both.").

The author shows off her extensive immersion in all the English Lit. courses she's ever taken by including references to lots of other famous fiction; all of them so much, much better than NOW YOU KNOW, it made me all the more anxious to close this book and read THEM.

Mercy on me for reading this tripe. However, although it really is tripe, somehow I have no doubt it will probably be optioned for a film at some point. It has all the earmarks of one of those perfectly awful 'chick flicks' that sometimes win an actress an Oscar, or at least a nomination. It's just that lame.