Ordinary Life: Stories [Hardcover]

Elizabeth Berg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 19, 2002

In this superb collection of short stories, the bestselling author of Open House and Talk Before Sleep takes us into the times in women’s lives when memories and events cohere to create a sense of wholeness, understanding, and change. In Ordinary Life, Mavis McPherson locks herself in the bathroom for a week, and no, she isn’t contemplating getting a divorce—she just needs some time to think, to take stock of her
life, and she comes to a surprising conclusion. In Today’s Special,a woman recognizes the solace she finds in the simple, timeless fare and atmosphere of the local diner and, ultimately, the harmony within her own spirit that familiar comforts can evoke. In White Dwarf, the secrets of a marriage are revealed as a couple passes the time with a seemingly insignificant word-association game. And in “Martin’s Letter to Nan,” the unforgettable husband and wife from Berg’s novel The Pull of the Moon engage in a new correspondence in which a different aspect of their marriage is revealed.

Elizabeth Berg’s fiction has been praised for its "brilliant insights about the human condition" (Detroit Free Press), and The Charlotte Observer has said that "Berg captures the way women think as well as any writer."Those same qualities of wisdom and insight are everywhere present in Ordinary Life.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The characters in Ordinary Life, Elizabeth Berg's collection of limpid, gemlike stories, are poised at the edge of knowing, and it takes only quiet events--a kiss, the return of a freed bird--to nudge them toward whatever they need to face, even if it is behind them. The title story, in which an elderly woman named Mavis McPherson locks herself in the bathroom for a week, contains the germ of Berg's message about the importance of the small, the everyday. Mavis's urge to retreat began when she found a photograph from 1946 of her husband and brother-in-law asleep. Behind them was a table, on which sat a porcelain figure, now broken, that had been her mother's.

She'd wished she had more pictures of everything she used to have, thought Mavis, all her furniture, even her old refrigerator, and what was in it, too: the big, square blocks of butter in the ribbed glass container, the old flowered mixing bowls she used to have holding leftovers, covered with waxed paper and anchored with rubber bands. How could she have known that ordinary life would have such allure later on?

Berg, a writer from Chicago whose 2000 novel Open House was an Oprah book-club selection, should appeal to readers who like the straightforward prose and clarity of Sue Miller and Jayne Anne Phillips. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly

Focusing, in 15 short tales, on those moments in women's lives that provide opportunity for reflection, bestselling author Berg (Open House, an Oprah's Book Club selection) zeroes in on the same kind of emotional revelations she plumbs in her novels. In many cases, her characters have simply reached a point at which they need to take stock, as has 79-year-old Mavis in the title story, who decides to hole up in the bathroom for a week. Supplied with food and magazines, and keeping her baffled husband at bay, Mavis ponders the seemingly arbitrary events of her marriage, the upbringing of her children, and the recent death of her sister, wondering if there is any meaning to it all. The adult daughter in "Caretaking" remembers her childhood as she learns how to cope with her mother, afflicted with Alzheimer's disease; in "What Stays," a young daughter takes solace in memories of her mother's gentleness and love. Couples who are at a dead end in their relationships learn things about themselves in unexpected ways, such as the pair in "White Dwarf," who examine the fallout of the wife's affair while playing a word-association game. "Martin's Letter to Nan" is the husband's response to the wife who left home in Berg's novel, The Pull of the Moon. While the men and women who populate the stories typify the monolithic entities of the fabled battle of the sexes "men don't talk" is a refrain repeated more than once Berg's gentle probing of everyday events offers insight into turning points of life that may not set off fireworks but are nevertheless indelible. Affecting and sentimental, these stories could easily appear in the magazines sold at grocery checkout counters; as light commercial fiction, they should provide sustenance for Berg's fans. Agent, Lisa Bankoff. 10-city author tour.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (February 19, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679437460
• ISBN-13: 978-0679437468
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #420,633 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elizabeth Berg won the NEBA Award for fiction for her body of work, and was a finalist for the ABBY for Talk Before Steep. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook, and the New York Times Magazine. She has also taught a writing workshop at Radcliffe College. She lives near Boston, Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ordinary Life is anything but ordinary... :), July 24, 2002

By 

Diane Moore - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Ordinary Life: Stories (Hardcover)

I am not normally a fan of short stories. I have tried to read them for years and I can't get into them. The stories never seem to sum up a point, it feels like as soon as I start getting into it, it ends! The only reason I tried this one is because I have read a few of her books and loved them. I read this book in two days! I had to keep coming back to it! Some of my favorites:

The first story "Ordinary Life: a Love Story" gets you right off the bat because the main character locks herself in the bathroom for a week! It's as almost if everyday life is too loud sometimes and the only way you can think is to shut yourself out from it for a while. A seventy-nine year old woman does this and her husband thinks that she has gone crazy. She just sits back, relaxes, and thinks about her life.. her marriage, her children, her sister that died of breast cancer. Memories plague her and she gets the relaxation she needs.

The third story in this collection is called "Things We Used to Believe" This is about a women Martha, who spends her time with a male best friend. "She thinks sometimes that she would like to marry him, but she is already severely married." This story got me.. how many times have I been with someone, wondering what it would be like to be with someone else, someone you are close to, but never attempted a relationship. (though I am not married) One of my favorite lines: "They get up, and she sees that his sneakers are huge. She understands that there is much about him that is unfamiliar to her. They start walking toward the lake. They walk to keep from the bedroom, where things would only get more difficult."

"Take this Quiz" is the sixth story about a husband and wife who have been together for a while, and the wife wants her husband to take a quiz in a magazine asking, "How Happy are you?" I once attempted something like this by trying to make my ex-boyfriend read "Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus." It didn't work. SPOILER: The most beautiful lines, metaphor in this story, and maybe the whole book in my opinion, was the way she described what happened to them after she was pushing about the quiz. "She is remembering the time she was nine and took apart a jewelry box she loved, to see what made the ballerina turn around. Though she paid careful attention to each step, when she tried to reassemble it, it didn't work the way it had before. No one else could fix it, either.The ballerina stayed in place, permanently turned away, oblivious to the music she had danced to before."

There are so many beautiful stories in this book. It's as if Elizabeth Berg takes the small, yet still important things about everyday life and creates descriptions so pure and beautiful, they remind you of the things you miss everyday when you are in such a hurry. Read this book.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ordinary Life is Extraordinary Reading!, July 1, 2002

By 

Nancy R. Katz "NancyK18" (NJ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ordinary Life: Stories (Hardcover)

Elizabeth Berg is one of those writers who seldom if ever fails to entice her readers with a good book. Whether she is writing about a woman going through a divorce, Open House, or an adolescent on the brink of her first love, Joy School, to a woman turning 50 and questioning her life(Pull of The Moon), it's as if she writes about the breath and sole of women everywhere. As I've often said a so-so Berg book(which there has only been one in my opinion) is better than most other books.

And now Berg offers her readers a new book which contains short stories called Ordinary Life: Stories. And while this may be a genre which man of her readres are not familiar with, it isn't a minutes too soon for them to fall in love with them as I did. I will be the first to admit that while I seldom if ever read short stories, I did find that Berg's writing and her characters, as always, imemdiately beckoned to me, intrigued me and left me sighing for more when I ultimately finished the book.

The stories themselves are small vignettes about life and love among ordinary people. But in Berg's hands these peopel are anything but ordinary, quite the oppostie as for us the readers these people become extraodinary. The stories revolve around many of the themes Berg explores in her books. Unconditional love, betrayal, growing up , dealing with an illness but most of all how people affect each other's lives. One can't help but see the similarities between the character of Mavis from the story Life, A Love Story and Nan from Pull of the Moon. And comparisons can also be made betwen the young woman Katie Nash from Durable Goods and the narrator of Matchmaker. Or again between the nurse in Never Change to the nurse in Sweet Revenge. But most of all I was blown away by the relationship between Lizzy and her ill mother in What Stays and couldn't help but think about the story the dauhgters and mother from What We Keep. Finally for Elizabeth Berg readers who loved Pull of the Moon as I did, Berg offers us a glimpse into Martin's thoughts in a very poignant letter he writes to Nan as she travels about during her soul-searching odyssey.

Berg is a master of describing the emotional fabric of her characters lives and often gives her readers the impression that she is writing about them. How many times, while reading this author have I wanted to say to her, "You write about me so well and we don't even know one another."

If I had any obejctions to this book of short stories it would be that it was over much too quickly. As hard as I tried to read slowly, I couldn't help but gulp down the pages. And like eating a good piece of chocolate, Berg's writings leave me yearning for more.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable., April 20, 2002

By 

Rusty Kransky "Rusty Kransky" (Greenport, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ordinary Life: Stories (Hardcover)

I became acquainted with Elizabeth Berg with OPEN HOUSE. I loved that book and found myself reading bits of it aloud to my partner. I am slowly working my way through her other books.

This book, for me, was a mixed bag. I found a few stories to be annoying and a few stunningly beautiful, with the rest in between (closer to beautiful than annoying, by the way.) One story I did NOT care for was the title story, "Ordinary Life". I see I am in the minority here but I found it gimicky and the resolution wasn't enough for me. I LOVED "Caretaking", "The Matchmaker" (great coming-of-age tale there) and especially "One Time at Christmas..."
Berg is a formidably talented writer, expressive and dramatic, and she makes it look so easy. This collection is recommended - the true gems easily made up for the weaker stories. (By the way, I have not yet read PULL OF THE MOON, so I know that after I do, I'll finally be able to read "Martin's Letter to Nan" - I just couldn't read the story first!)