Pages for You [Hardcover]

Sylvia Brownrigg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2001

A wry, tender novel of sexual and intellectual awakening.

Something made her risk a look at the reader, who took a sip of black coffee. And another. She turned the pages. She pursed her lips. Flannery abandoned her breakfast and watched the woman drink her coffee. It wasn't that she wanted the coffee herself. That wasn't it. Rather, she wanted to be the coffee: she envied the dark drink its chance to taste those lips.

In a steam-filled diner in a college town, Flannery Jansen catches sight of something more beautiful than she's ever seen: a graduate student, reading. Flannery, a seventeen-year-old, new to everything around her -- college, the East Coast, bodies of literature, and the sexual flurries of student life -- is shocked by her own desire to follow this beauty wherever it takes her. By chance she finds herself enrolled in a class taught by the remote, brilliant older woman; intimidated at first, she gradually becomes Anne Arden's student outside class as well. Whatever the subject -- Baudelaire, lipstick colors -- Flannery proves an eager pupil, until one day she learns more about Anne than she ever wanted to know.

A bittersweet, exhilarating, sentimental education, Pages for You confirms Sylvia Brownrigg as "one of the most exuberantly agile minds among younger American writers" (Dan Cryer, Newsday) and is her sexiest, most poignant work to date.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The narrator of Brownrigg's thoroughly engaging new novel asks this question of her departed lover: "What would happen if I wrote some pages for you? Each day a page... to show you that I am finding a story, the story of how we might have been together, once." What follows is roughly 100 short chapters chronicling the rise and fall of one woman's first love. Flannery Jansen, 17 and fresh from a "one-horse town" in California, falls headlong for a teaching assistant at the tony (and never named) East Coast university she attends. Page by page, Brownrigg captures in delicious and witty prose the rapture and humiliation of first love: first sight, first words, first flirtation, first gift, first kiss, first night, first declaration, first fight and, as the prologue gives away, first betrayal. A lesser writer would be swamped in sentimentality, but Brownrigg handles her material with great good humor and vitality. Readers familiar with Brownrigg's first two books, the novel The Metaphysical Touch and the story collection Ten Women Who Shook the World, know that her characterizations are deft and spare. Here, in pitch-perfect dialogue, she conveys the dueling attitudes of an aspiring writer from the West and a teaching assistant deeply schooled in traditional literary criticism and academic mores. That Flannery's lover, Anne Arden, is a woman is not quite beside the point. The lovers are well aware others might find them "freaks." But refreshingly, Brownrigg doesn't make Flannery and Anne victims. They are simply two girls in love which shouldn't put any readers off. This exquisitely written, bittersweet Valentine of a novel is for any reader who has ever been in a romantic relationship and wants to remember and revel in all the foolish things we do for love. (Apr.) Forecast: Brownrigg's audience of discerning readers will grow with this book, which booksellers may recommend for its wit, fast-moving pace and emotional candor; the sexy jacket speaks for itself.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Coming-of-age novels that focus on sexual initiation were once the exclusive territory of straight male writers, but, thankfully, women now write authentically, unashamedly, profoundly, and directly about their sensual feelings, including those for each other. Here, 17-year-old Californian Flannery is new to the East Coast and the Ivy League college she attends, and is drawn irresistibly to Anne, a teaching assistant 11 years her senior. A hauntingly beautiful love develops between the two in this tale either for young readers first discovering who they are and how they love, or for those remembering a rose-colored past. Brownrigg lingers delectably on the small, suggestive gesture, such as a throaty murmur of indecision, but her otherwise exquisite timing falters at the end, condensing the length and texture of Flannery's grief. Some may read this with alarm at the inherently unequal power structure between the two women, seeing a minor-aged innocent exploited. But among those whose same-sex yearnings first attached themselves to teachers, some may sigh, not over past desires unfulfilled, but the fond recollections of what might have been. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux; 1st edition (April 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374228590
• ISBN-13: 978-0374228590
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #911,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sylvia Brownrigg is the author of several acclaimed works of fiction: four novels--Morality Tale, The Delivery Room, Pages for You, and The Metaphysical Touch--and a collection of stories, Ten Women Who Shook the World. Morality Tale was described in the New York Times as "divinely deadpan", and in the San Francisco Chronicle as a "witty parable of marriage." The Delivery Room won the Northern California Book Award for best novel.

Sylvia's works have been included in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times lists of notable fictions and have been translated into several languages, and she has also won a Lambda award for fiction. In addition to writing fiction, Sylvia Brownrigg has been widely published as a reviewer and critic for publications such as the New York Times and the Times Literary Supplement.

Sylvia grew up in California and in England, was educated at Yale and Johns Hopkins Universities, and lived for many years in London. She now lives in Berkeley with her family.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lukewarm, May 17, 2001

By 

Lesbian Reader (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pages for You (Hardcover)

... I expected more. Almost no one is calling this book a "romance," perhaps to keep it from being discounted as a mere genre effort, but it is basically a romance, and not a particularly inspired one at that.

As a novel of young infatuation and love, of sexual and intellectual awakening, it succeeds. Brownrigg's characterization of Flannery plays with sincerity--but there was nothing particularly profound. I felt I had read this story before and I took away nothing new.

As a coming out novel with an exploration of sexual identity it plays quite poorly compared to those much maligned "romance" novels. Frankly, the lesbian romance writers are delivering these complicated themes with power and passion that Brownrigg doesn't come close to. Even the quoted section on this page reminded me of a similar scene by a lesbian romance writer where a young woman watches a much older woman she yearns after ironing clothes. Every time I see an iron I remember the writer's evocation of the older woman's hands smoothing and caressing the fabric. Brownrigg's description of the way Anne's lips are touching the coffee gives me nothing nearly that evocative and I doubt I'll remember it months from now, let alone years.

This novel isn't strong enough to stand up to its hype and therefore disappointed me. It's an enjoyable read, but not a highly diverting one, sometimes thought-provoking, but when I was done I promptly forgot most of it. When a novel really works for me I'll think about it for days, recall scenes vividly, and wish it had never ended. Pages for You didn't do that for me. It left me lukewarm at best.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tour of the heart for women AND men, April 7, 2001

By 

Reads Voraciously (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pages for You (Hardcover)

The striking cover drew me in - yes judge it by the cover -- and the prose kept me there. No, more than the prose, the insight to the shape and nuance of love. I felt present in this story so that the words dropped away and I was with these two lovers: laughing, playing, loving, learning, fearing. As a male reader, the theme is universal (and hotly revelatory, I must say, too). Two women, yes, but more like a younger and a wiser, though sometimes the wiser and the older. Brownrigg finds these moments and holds them, like catching light and letting us see the impulse before releasing it. The format is PAGE by PAGE -- a whole emotional imprint within the discipline of a page. "Pages for You" is delicious and compelling. I stretched out in bed and read it through. Wrung out a bit, but the story and vivid images are in my dreams. Dare I say it?: a masterpiece, a book unlike any I've read. Brownrigg in her other books writes bravely and imaginatively, with a confident and witty voice. I think this book will thrive. PFY will certainly keep many readers warm...

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pages for Us, June 23, 2001

By 

Daniel Olivas (West Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pages for You (Hardcover)

In beautiful, short and evocative chapters, Brownrigg tells the story of Flannery, a first-year college student, who falls in love with Anne, a teaching assistant a decade her senior. The passion between these two women is honestly and powerfully drawn by the author. I was a little concerned about the age difference between the two as well as the fact that Anne could be abusing her power with an undergraduate. Once I got over these hurdles (and we shouldn't ignore them...what if Anne were a Walter?), I fell under the spell of their love and Flannery's not-so-surprising heartbreak. This is a well-crafted, haunting book that will conjur up vivid memories of one's first encounter with passionate love.