Customer Reviews

Rockville Pike: A Suburban Comedy of Manners

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

 

 

Angst-ridden and unhappily married Jane Kramer helps her husband Leon run his family's discount furniture store on Rockville Pike in Rockville, Maryland. Coping is difficult for Jane as she tries at the same time to keep an eye on Delia (a store employee to whom she suspects her husband is attracted), supervise her 16-year-old Goth son who was just suspended from school, and assist fellow soccer-mom Tiffany in running a scrapbooking business.

At the same time, a mystery ensues. Money is disappearing from the store's funds. Who could possibly be taking it? It's not as simple as it sounds.

How Jane deals with all of these problems makes for one hilarious read. The author's hard-hitting, sarcastic humor is timed just right to provide a truly laugh-out loud reading experience.

I absolutely loved the Rockville setting since this city is my hometown. The author did a fantastic job of bringing some true-to-life local color into this story. She used not only the quirky character of the city but also references to F. Scott Fitzgerald who is buried here in Rockville.

Rockville Pike is a fun story with very interesting characters, many of whom you'll be sure not to forget. This is an excellent novel for everyone. No, you do not need to live near Rockville Pike to really enjoy it. I highly recommend it for everyone who likes to laugh.

This is a very nice book -- Except, WAIT -- I think it is about MY LIFE! Ha.

I guess I could really relate to the dismal, suburban setting and the odd suburban characters. I loved the Goth son and his rich friend. The husband was, well, in many ways, pretty typical! Janie manages to rally, but you can see why it wasn't easy for her.

If you are wondering how you ended up in suburbia you'll be able to relate to Janie too.

If you're looking for some light reading for vacation, it's a decent read. And maybe I'm jaded because I read all these great reviews and just expected a bit more. If you're in the market for a good story with compelling characters, however, you might want to look elsewhere. Yet, if you have ever spent any time living or working around Rockville Pike (as I have) the book is a must read. Loved the detailed descriptions of the area, right down to the group mailboxes (they are such a Maryland thing). There is a lot of promise here, and I just wish that the writer would have either completely dropped some of the distracting, almost unrelated, side story lines or done the opposite and better developed the supporting characters who just seemed to be mentioned haphazardly.

I live in Rockville and have always been both fascinated and confused by the location of the Fitzgeralds' graves. It's so utterly bizarre and incongruous, something that I shouldn't be stumbling upon on my way to pick up the laundry. What an interesting plot thread.

Rockville Pike is told from the perspective of a middle age suburban wife and mother who finds herself living a less than satisfactory life. She works at her husband's family's furniture store in Rockville, Maryland and is the mother of a teenage son recently turned Goth and vegan. This book chronicles her realization that her marriage is floundering, the furniture store is hemmoraging money, and none of this is even similar to the life she once planned to lead. This novel follows her comical and introspective search for answers and the decisions she is faced with regarding how to improve her lot in life.

Susan Coll does an excellent job of capturing the feelings of the disgruntled suburban soccer mom caught in a life that doesn't seem her own. The characters are very well developed and easy to relate to. It is not at all difficult to believe Jane Kramer, the narrator, and how she feels about her husband, job, and child. The downside is that this book drags at times and is occasionally boring. This disappointment is tempered with other sections of the book that are extremely entertaining and funny. Another reason this book is fun for some readers is the references to Rockville, MD and other localities related to this DC suburb.

Overall, this book is mediocre, but portions of the book save it and result in a novel worth reading.

In the DC vicinity Jane Kramer worries that she is flunking at Life 101 as nothing she does brings her any degree of satisfaction let alone happiness. She has no one she is close to including her husband Leon. Because money is tight, she works at the family store, Kramer's Discount Furniture Store, along side of her husband and his Uncle Seymour. The school has suspended their teenage Goth son Justin. Finally she believes that Leon is having an affair with furniture saleswoman Delia.

Jane refuses to eat lunch at the store; instead she seeks solace in a graveyard where F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife are buried. Jane turns to the Fitzgerald novels and Memories Inc., a business run out of people's homes for some solace. When Justin flees to New York without informing his parents and Leon leaves on a business trip with Delia, Jane follows in their wake, but has her own escapades to contend with.

This is a solid character study told in the first person by Jane, who questions why she lives. The story line is intriguing as Jane struggles with the realization that no one cares whether she lives or dies beyond costs of a burial. Though the ending seems to simple for the centerfold of inferiority complexes, readers will appreciate this strong look at a woman in trouble with no one she believes she can turn to while she goes deeper into crisis.

Harriet Klausner

This book is smart, funny, and hilarious! The story is NOT predictable, the characters are unlike any I've ever read about, and it was such a fun read that I wish it had been twice as long.

This would make a great movie!

The Talking Heads' song ONCE IN A LIFETIME comes to mind while reading ROCKVILLE PIKE. Janie is not quite sure how she came to be living in a huge house, working at her husband's family store, and trying to connect with her increasingly distant husband. In addition to the humor and pathos in this tale, there's an odd sense of menace. Who is Delia underneath her makeup and flirty clothes? What is Tracy, the lawyer/scrapbooking consultant, really up to? Where did those old bones found under the store come from? Characters and conflicts come and go, many not really explored or resolved, which is a bit frustrating; there are actually about three potential novels that could come out of ROCKVILLE PIKE. Overall,however, Janie is quite likeable and you want to keep reading in the hope that everything will turn out for her.