Reconsidering Happiness: A Novel (Flyover Fiction) and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more


or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Reconsidering Happiness: A Novel (Flyover Fiction)
 
 
Start reading Reconsidering Happiness: A Novel (Flyover Fiction) on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Reconsidering Happiness: A Novel (Flyover Fiction) [Paperback]

Sherrie Flick (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

List Price: $21.95
Price: $17.12 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $4.83 (22%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Only 8 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).
Want it delivered Monday, January 30? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition $9.99  
Paperback $17.12  

Book Description

Flyover Fiction September 1, 2009
The two silent Ss of Des Moines beckon twenty-three-year-old Vivette with a sexy finger, a promise. So, in the mid-1990s, she convinces Grandpa Joe-Joe to sell his Buick for twenty dollars, leaves behind her friends, her job at a hip New England bakery, and an affair with a married man, and moves to Iowa. Margaret, who left the same bakery years earlier on her own restless quest, offers pointers from her cautiously settled Nebraska life.

In a story of lust and longing, love and loneliness, disappointment and desire stretching from the East Coast to the West, these two pioneering women navigate through secrets, lies, decisions, and compromises shared over pool tables, postcards, and shots of whiskey. Starting up, starting over, slowing down, they crisscross each other s lives like highways on a map, always escaping, flying toward a dreamt future, and trying to avoid the charted course.

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with Stations West (Yellow Shoe Fiction) $13.68

Reconsidering Happiness: A Novel (Flyover Fiction) + Stations West (Yellow Shoe Fiction)
  • This item: Reconsidering Happiness: A Novel (Flyover Fiction)

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • Stations West (Yellow Shoe Fiction)

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

To break off an affair with a married man, 23-year-old Vivette takes her grandfather's Buick and drives away from her home in Portsmouth, N.H., heading for Des Moines, Iowa, for no other reason than the attraction of its two silent ss. On the way she spends a week in Nebraska with Margaret, who Vivette met when they both worked at the Penhallow Bakery in Portsmouth. Margaret, who also fled heartbreak, is married now and settled down, and Vivette seeks pointers on life in the Great Plains. From chapter to chapter, the story shifts between Vivette and Margaret and between the past and present, gradually revealing the details of their involvement with the untrustworthy men they left behind. In her descriptions of food, the Nebraskan landscape, and the rhythms of work at a tourist town bakery, Flick indulges in sensual detail with pleasurable results. But the novel lacks drama; Vivette and Margaret have little to do but ruminate on happiness and their past waywardness. Later chapters revealing the current circumstances of their former lovers adds little insight. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Reconsidering Happiness is a courageously intimate novel about the young women of modern America, their friendships, their betrayals, and their anxious cravings for everything from sex to pastry." --Jim Crace, author of Being Dead and The Pesthouse

"Reading Sherrie Flick's big beautiful Buick of a book is like taking a road-trip through that landscape we call life. It is full of feeling and caring, passion and pain, every page rich with illuminating surprises of timing and grace. My best advice is to drive this book slowly, savoring its passage." --Chuck Kinder, author of Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale

"A feast of love, lust, longing, loneliness, and home-made baked goods but most of all it's a mouth-watering, yeasty feast of language. A fresh, hip, witty, and poignant novel peopled with a quirky and appealing cast of characters." --Marly Swick, author of The Summer Before the Summer of Love and Evening News

Product Details

  • Paperback: 208 pages
  • Publisher: Bison Books (September 1, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0803225210
  • ISBN-13: 978-0803225213
  • Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,535,181 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

 

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars It takes time to find happiness, August 22, 2009
By 
Clifford Garstang (Staunton, Virginia USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Reconsidering Happiness: A Novel (Flyover Fiction) (Paperback)
Don't look for a fast-paced story here because you won't find it. And that seems at least partly the point. These people--Vivette and Margaret, mostly, but also the men in their lives--are searching and constantly refining what it means to be happy. That's something that develops over time, and through scenes in a fractured timeline the reader gets the sense of that evolution. I love that these are not perfect people with great lives. They're pretty ordinary, and they're flawed, and that's what makes this book a really fascinating read. That and the beautiful language.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Reconsidering Happiness, October 18, 2009
By 
This review is from: Reconsidering Happiness: A Novel (Flyover Fiction) (Paperback)
This book is a beautiful reflection on how we come to terms with our lives, our loves, and most importantly our relationship to the self. Filled with lush and thoughtful descriptions, Sherrie Flick's writing appeals to all the senses and fully recreates the worlds that her characters inhabit. This novel is a delicate balance of past and present, of hunger and of satiation, of accident and of action. While this novel may not be a perfect match for readers who prefer strong and linear plot lines, Flick demonstrates her mastery of using the physical landscape to mirror the psychological state of her characters. Reconsidering Happiness speaks loudest in its moments of quiet reflection.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Reading Happiness, August 8, 2009
This review is from: Reconsidering Happiness: A Novel (Flyover Fiction) (Paperback)
RECONSIDERING HAPPINESS is a lovely, smart, patient book. It starts out with Vivette's breathless, solo sprint away from a confusing life in the East, settles down into a comfortable pattern of modern-day pioneering that takes us across the Plains out West to meet Margaret, and finally ends with a gentle ellipsis in Des Moines. True to her name, Vivette is alive, vivacious, electric, and someone I'd like to take a long roadtrip with for sure, because you know she's going to stop at every diner that serves homemade pie and every bar with a pool table. If you're looking for a lovely reading experience about a young woman who considers (and reconsiders) the nature of joy and contentment as she boldly explores worlds of possibilities, this is your book. The constant presence of food and the making of food also helps make it a sensuous book of lust, longing, and the undying American spirit, where the desire to head into the sunset leaving the past in the dust is alive and well.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews



Inside This Book (learn more)
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(3)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums



So You'd Like to...


Create a guide


Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject