Customer Reviews

Second Chances

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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.

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)

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.