Second Chances [Paperback]

Alice Adams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999

In a moving and richly evocative novel about the remarkable capacity of the human spirit, Alice Adams brings readers into the beautiful community of San Sebastian, California, where a group of dear old friends have shared their lives for many wonderful, difficult years. It has taken writer Dudley Venable and her husband Sam thirty years to perfect their once-tumultuous marriage, but now they've almost got it right...lovely Celeste Timberlake, recently widowed, has found herself in the midst of a destructive new relationship...Edward Crane is desperately trying to hold on to his much-younger lover, Freddy Fuentes...and the group's eccentric, Polly Blake, shares everything but her own dark secrets. Together they make up a circle of deeply devoted friends who have weathered life together -- and discovered the resilience of the heart, the power of friendship, and the wonder of second chances.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With characteristic insight and sensitivity, Adams (Superior Women) writes about "the over-60, getting into 70's group." Over the timespan of a year, and with adroitly managed flashbacks, Adams follows the lives of a group of old friends in a small Northern California community. Close neighbors now, their lives have intertwined in various places in the past; several of them shared a commitment to liberal political activism in Spain and during the anti-Vietnam War years. Celeste, whose husband Charles has just died; Dudley (a woman) who is married to Sam; Polly, who once had an affair with Charles; and Edward, a homosexual who lives with his lover, Freddy, have known each other for four or more decades. Now well past middle age, they are hoping to preserve their sexuality, avoid illness (they are all phobic about cancer) and maintain the quality of their lives. Each will suffer a major, dislocating loss, an intimation of their own mortality. Meanwhile, Adams shows this group in desultory, gossipy conversations that have the texture of real life: low-key, mundane. The tensions that lie under the surface are confined to stream-of-consciousness and intuitive insights. (Adams becomes a little tedious about the latter: too many characters have amazing intuitions and guess unknowable things exactly right.) Into this group come two young people: Sara, Celeste's 40-year-old godchild, herself long involved in political activism, and Bill, Celeste's mysterious, much younger suitor, whose strange behavior is never adequately explained. While most of the strands of the plot come together in satisfactory fashion, the reader may feel cheated that all the dramatic events take place offstage. This device does, however, allow Adams to convey with moving accuracy the loneliness and isolation of people, qualities that old age seems to deepen. For all that, this is also a book about survival, and the resiliency of the human spirit. 50,000 first printing; BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

This is a novel about relationships. Several elderly men and women, living in a small town near San Francisco and sharing complicated histories, are experiencing major and minor changes in their livesdeaths of people they love, the onset of disease, the shocking realization that they are old. With each loss, the group becomes tighter and more interdependent. Despite the concerns the characters have for current social problems, there is a strangely time-free quality to the novel. Specific events are not significantwhat matters is their effect on these people. The characters are well drawn, and Adams makes you care what becomes of them. Recommended for serious fiction collections. BOMC alternate.Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Univ. Lib., Davenport, Ia.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press; Later Edition edition (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671028499
• ISBN-13: 978-0671028497
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,850,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bittersweet, January 12, 2000

By 

S. McHale (Costa Mesa, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Second Chances (Paperback)

Alice Adams uses her trademark writing style to chronicle the aging process among a tightly knit, yet diverse group of friends. They are unalike, but their judgements toward each other are mild. They make comprimises because, when you get down to it, they need each other. They are alone, lost their mates, or are a heartbeat away from losing their mates.

Aging is a drag, but Alice Adams has a way of softening it. It's always a pleasure to get to know her characters. She gets inside their heads and shows (through the help of limited parentheticals) what they are immediately thinking as they are saying something else. They are not forced upon us. Tragedies happen in this story, but they aren't the easy emotional or manipulative bombs that a lesser author would overuse.

It's an engaging read. Unfortunately, this book is not as good as her Superior Women.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eight Friends Who are "Oh, So Civil", June 11, 2009

By 

Bonnie Brody "Book Lover and Knitter" (Port St. Lucie, FL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Second Chances (Paperback)

This is a somewhat contrived novel of close friends growing old together. These people are so repressed and self-centered that I wonder how Ms. Adams could consider them real friends at all. Everything remains unsaid and civil. There is no true sharing between them other than so WASP-like ESP which I'm not culturally privy to.

I must say, however, that despite all the "darlings" interspersed in conversations and greetings, it is a well-written book and there is a strong sense of characterization that just misses the boat.

We get to share life in San Sebastian, California with eight friends approaching old age. Their lives outside of their friendships seem rather dilletantish, but 'oh, so civil'.

"And now, he thinks, now I am old and sober, and instead of jealousy I feel the most excruciating tender compassion for my wife, who is also old and sober and sometimes very silly. And I hardly know which emotion is the more difficult to bear. (p. 148)

1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars what was that?, February 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Second Chances (Paperback)

I read it and I still dont understand what the point was. There has to be a better way to portray the elderly than a bunch of bohemian Californian weirdies who have no clue. At least I hope there is.