Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

How a five-year-old manages to make the adults in his life hew to the love he holds for them is the sweet treat in this honest, brutal, bitterly funny slice of life. When Emelia's day-old daughter, Isabel, succumbs to SIDS, her own life stalls. She can't work; she can't sleep; Central Park, once her personal secret garden, now is a minefield of happy mother-child dyads. Since Isabel's death, husband Jack's only solace for the guilt of breaking up his sexless marriage with Carolyn for Emelia's (now-absent) passion and love is joint custody of William, now five. What Emelia cannot bear most are Wednesdays, when she must cross the park to collect William at the 92nd Street Y preschool and take another shot at stepmotherhood. Carolyn, William's furious mother and a renowned Upper East Side OB/GYN, lives to nab Emelia for mistakes in handling him. Carolyn's indicting phone calls raise the already sky-high tension in Jack and Emelia's home, but they don't compare with Carolyn's announcement that, at age 42, she is pregnant. The news pushes Emelia to confess to Jack two things she shouldn't. William is charmingly realized, and Waldman (Daughter's Keeper) has upper bourgeois New York down cold. The result is a terrific adult story. (Feb. 21)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

In the opening scene of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, Ayelet Waldman's compelling and artfully drawn new novel, Emilia Greenleaf is making her way through Central Park on her way to pick up her stepson, William, from daycare. The park, her refuge since childhood, holds the solitude she craves -- if only she can make it past the playgrounds. Emilia's infant daughter, Isabel, has recently died, exiling Emilia from the careless camaraderie of mothers and leaving her marriage to Jack Woolf in danger of collapse. Isabel's death leaves Emilia, also, to cope with William, Jack's child from his first marriage. Emilia wants to love William, if only for Jack's sake, though he is a guilt-inducing reminder that her affair with his father inflicted lasting damage. But now that Isabel has died, Emilia finds William's presence insufferable. Her honesty on this point does not make her an immediately likable character, but it does steer this novel of a bereaved mother away from any hint of bathos. Emilia's voice is terrific -- sharp, witty, funny, resilient, sarcastic, passionate and very angry. She derides support groups, pushes away friends, tries the nearly unbelievable patience of all who love her until, at a crucial moment, Jack finally says, "It's not a get-out-of-jail-free card, Emilia. Isabel's death doesn't entitle you to do and say whatever the hell you want, to hurt whomever you want." Grief does give a strange, unwelcome power to the griever, and adults defer to Emilia's loss, keeping a safe distance in various ways. William, however, must spend each Wednesday afternoon with her -- and she with him. William is a remarkable boy, precocious and serious, prone to pointing out to everyone within hearing that he's lactose intolerant. Emilia describes him as being like "a very small sixty-two-year-old man." But William is just 5 years old, still struggling with his parents' divorce and with the very idea of death. Emilia's feelings are the least of his concerns. In one partic ularly wrenching moment, William, while instructing Emilia on the intricacies of eBay, suggests pragmatically that they sell Isabel's things online. After all, since she's dead, she's not going to use them. The moment is so painful that it's hard to remember he's just a child, and Emilia's harsh response feels justified. Or it does until Jack comes home and sees past William's terrible suggestion to his innocence and confusion -- and his fear. This complex dynamic shapes and propels the book -- there's a continual tug-of-war of sympathy -- and so does the growing awareness that Emilia, for all her candor, is not a completely trustworthy narrator. Indeed, her unreliability is one of the sources of this novel's tension and power. This is the story of a woman struggling through her grief, yes, but it's also the story of a woman forced by loss to re-evaluate her past and her choices, even her desires. She tries hard to connect with William and repair her family, but in pursuit of the perfect moment -- the moment when she can imagine "how we must look to an observer, a mother and her young son, laughing and running through the rain" -- she forgets about William himself, the boy right beside her, shivering with cold. The novel is beautifully paced and unfolds seamlessly, but as it builds, there's a disconcerting sense that Emilia is not telling the whole story -- and she isn't. Emilia isn't being duplicitous; she's simply lost in this landscape without a map. There's one vital truth she cannot see; another that she cannot admit. The novel turns on the moment when Jack's boundless patience finally runs out and they face off at last, opening the path to a complete rift or to healing. Absolution comes for Emilia from an unexpected source, and she is able, finally, to emerge from her grief, to forgive her betrayals and those of others -- to forgive even the fact that love is not the stuff of fairy tales but something that grows from the ordinary moments, good and bad, that make a life. There are maps of Central Park, but Emilia, though often lost there, never buys one, sensing perhaps that the truest discoveries are made by plunging off the path into unknown territory, willingly or not. At the end of this absorbing novel, Isabel is still dead, and William still asks too many questions, but Emilia herself is movingly, powerfully transformed, having journeyed through the most difficult terrain a parent can imagine, learning on her way to appreciate life's "accidental beauty," its unexpected and inexplicable moments of grace. -- Kim Edwards is the author of "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" and "The Secrets of a Fire King." Reviewed by Kim Edwards
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First. edition (January 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385515308
• ISBN-13: 978-0385515306
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #673,421 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

87 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Why people love her or hate her (and an aside about giving books fair reviews), February 19, 2006

By	K. Corn "reviewer" (Indianapolis,, IN United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

If you read the reviews here, it is pretty easy to figure out who truly appreciates Ayelet Waldman's writing and who has a vendetta against her (the reasons are elaborated below).

I discovered one of her books years ago, a murder mystery set in suburbia with a heroine who managed to set things right in spite of dealing with all the usual distractions of parenting, from car pools to household disasters. I liked the book a great deal (only wish I could recall the title). I knew very little about the author but I did receive a nice letter from her after I wrote a glowing review of that book.

At the time, I had no idea Waldman was about to be at the cneter of a controversy, especially after she spilled her guts on her website, "Bad Mommy", writing about suicidal feelings, abortions and other issues which made some parents attack her viciously. You may still be able to see some of her posts at that site, although I believe she is about to end that Blog and move on to writing for Salon, the online magazine.

Controversy aside, I DID like this new book (Love and Other Impossible Pursuits). Many readers may not find the idea of a mistress who steals another woman's husband to be to their liking but it is to Waldman's credit that she doesn't turn away from the messier aspects of life or from presenting characters who are less than noble. Parenthood also is seen as both challenging and, at times, absolutely horrendous. I can relate to that. I love being a parent but have days when I fall into bed absolutely exhausted, glad the day has ended. Thankfully, those days are in the minority.

Anyway, I urge you to stick with this book because you won't be able to predict where it is going and you'll get much out of learning how the main character evolves...and evolve she does. I actually found myself drawn to her....or, at least, somewhat sympathetic for a person who suffered that much.

Now, HERE'S WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT SOME OF THE OTHER REVIEWS and why some of them may not have given her a fair shake:

Waldman has been the center of some controversy due to her "Bad Mommy" blog, a place where she actually writes openly about her suicidal impulses, abortions and other subjects which set some parents on edge, to the point of hatred.Some are quite sanctimonious and judgmental, even though I have a feeling more than a few of them have some painful secrets of their own, ones they aren't so willing to share. Many people do.

Waldman was also a regular visitor to UrbanBaby, something that won't be a secret once you start reading Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, since it is mentioned in the book quite a few times. She is hardly a rabid fan of the site and she passes judgment on some of the other parents there. Fans of UrbanBaby may take offense from this.

Because of this, I caution readers to give this book a fair shake. Waldman is a good writer and she strives for integrity and honesty. Love this book or hate it but do so because of the book itself, the writing and whether it truly engages you. Separate that from how you may feel about Waldman herself. To do anything less is to be unfair to the work itself and to the world created there.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars But Love Is Possible..and Maybe, too, Other Pursuits, April 8, 2007

By	Richard Zboray (Stratford, CT) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (Paperback)

As a guy unaware of Ayelet Waldman's background, I was intrigued enough by the title, LOVE AND OTHER IMPOSSIBLE PURSUITS, to buy it. I assumed it would be about someone who really wants to love but can't figure out how it's done or whether love exists. But that's not what this story is about. It's about a cold, quick witted mother, Emilia, who's got issues long as a hopeful kid's Christmas list: a dead infant daughter, an apparent know-it-all five year old stepson; problems with men (her husband and her dad); problems with women (her mom, all moms with infants, her husband's first wife). Kavetch she doesn't. She tries to keep going, but she navigates as poorly through NYC (could anyone be more hopeless at hailing a cab in the rain?) as she does through relationships--all the while refusing to condesend to using any sort of guide (a map, a therapist).
I enjoyed the evolution of her relationship with the smartest five year old in the world, feeling bad for all parties as they stumbled about. And I kept turning the pages until Emilia got to a really bad place that made her truly human but isolated. I didn't know how Waldman was going to convincingly bring this story to a conclusion, but hats off to her--she movingly pulled off the magic.
Along the way, I hope I've become more compassionate to couples who have lost infants, step-families and really smart five year olds. Next time I see fiction by Ayelet Waldman, I'll pick it. I imagine that like her heroine, she's tough, smart, boldly honest but unlike her heroine, she knows her way around human hearts.

26 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Whiny, overprivileged homewrecker seeks sympathy, February 11, 2006

By	Lulu (Virginia) - See all my reviews

It takes some skill to fool people into thinking you have written a great novel (Booklist gave this a star????) when you have produced drivel with not a single likable character. It's really an achievement to make a mother who's just lost a baby unsympathetic, but this author has done it! In fact, the only character more irritating than the narrator is the stepson, who I would have pushed off a pier. I wound up wondering whether the poor baby was better off wherever souls go than living with these self-absorbed morons. I can't figure out why the reviewers think this was funny. What was funny? That she sold this to a big publisher? Like -- joke's on them type-stuff? I don't get it. What am I missing? Was it supposed to be a black comedy? Does anybody want my copy?