The Sweet Edge [Paperback]

Alison Pick (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1551927837 | ISBN-13: 978-1551927831 | Publication Date: July 28, 2006

A realistic portrayal of the world of urban twenty-somethings, The Sweet Edge tells the story of a young couple who decide to go their own way for the summer in order to figure out their relationship. Ellen chooses to work in a trendy Toronto art gallery, while Adam takes a solo canoe trip into the Arctic tundra. The two characters alternate chapters and points-of-view: the reader frets with Ellen through an increasingly sweltering city, then journeys inside the young man’s head as he goes dangerously deep into wilderness. Their impressions of the world around them and their partnership gradually change, until their worlds — and their changed worldviews — suddenly and dangerously collide. Pick seamlessly weaves two distinct voices and two distinct settings into a single, sophisticated whole, making The Sweet Edge a beautifully written novel about the delicate balance between love and change.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Canadian poet Pick's first novel preciously ponders the travails of a young couple as they figure out who they are and if they want (or, indeed, need) each other. Switching perspectives between art gallery gopher Ellen and brooding grad student Adam, Pick zeroes in on the deceptions and mutual disappointments that dog the pair as Ellen, desperate to hold on to Adam, follows him from Kingston, Ontario, to Toronto, even as she suspects he has been unfaithful to her. He has, of course, which makes her cling to him even more; her fear of abandonment trumps pride. Adam, intent on disentangling himself from Ellen, goes on a two-month soul-searching trip to the Canadian wilderness. While he is away, Ellen begins to see herself as an independent entity and finds herself surrounded by a supportive group of new friends. Adam, meanwhile, battles memories and Arctic hardships he isn't sure he will be able to survive. Pick infuses the novel with shining metaphors, which add a welcome luster to an otherwise stale plot. (Aug.)
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From Booklist

Ellen and Adam have been together for three years when Adam declares that he needs some space. They spend the summer apart: Ellen, seriously depressed, works in an art gallery in Toronto, and Adam takes a canoe trip alone in the Arctic. Although this is a really good story, the greatestest strengths in Pick's debut novel lie in her understanding and rendering of characters and her skilled use of both language and setting in limning those characters. Time spent with Ellen in Toronto goes back and forth between the present, when she is befriended by Deborah, a hippielike woman who works temporarily in the art gallery, and the past, as Ellen reviews her life with Adam, trying to understand what led to their separation. Time spent with Adam in the Arctic is primarily a vicarious experience in the excitement and lure of Arctic travel. But they both go through a period of growth and greater self-awareness as they journey along their separate paths. An award-winning poet, Pick has now revealed herself as a very talented novelist. Maureen O'Connor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Raincoast Books (July 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1551927837
• ISBN-13: 978-1551927831
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,261,473 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Language, Boring Book, February 26, 2008

By 

Disaster in a Halo (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sweet Edge (Paperback)

There's no doubt the author can write. I loved her dialogue and style. But the characters were atrocious. I found myself skipping over most of Adam's chapters, because he was so reprehensible. There wasn't anything redeming about him--he wants to have sexual relations with every woman he comes in contact with. Okay, fine, but he's obviously not boyfriend material. Which leads us to his girlfriend, Ellen. We know she has abandonment issues - we are hit over the head with that with several flashbacks. So because of this, (spoiler alert) she can't let go of her cheating boyfriend who doesn't respect her at all (in fact he seems to dislike her) and who doesn't respect their relationship (knocks up his bisexual friend and then cheers when she tells him she's miscarrying--what a nice guy!!)
I know you don't have to necessarily like characters in order to like a book. But in this case, I just couldn't see past the vileness of both Ellen and Adam to enjoy reading. And the most annoying part of all is the ending. I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced that Adam had a great epiphany that will make him into a "better person". Ellen seems to be the same old doormat, letting this guy back into her life, her bath, and, presumably, her bed. In a couple of weeks Adam will forget all the "life lessons" he supposedly learned in the Arctic (side note: why do these people have to canoe in the Arctic to finally realize they're a jackass?) and return to his disgusting ways; Ellen will let him walk all over her. Any other ending is just fanstasy. I would have liked the book much better had it ended with Ellen kicking Adam to the curb and getting on with her life as an independent woman who knows she deserves more than what she's allowed herself so far.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Story of Two People Changed By Their Separate Experiences, January 4, 2008

By 

Story Circle Book Reviews - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sweet Edge (Paperback)

While the story may sound simple on the surface, the unfolding of two protagonists through their alternate points-of-view is a masterful and welcome combination of mind, heart and spirit. We don't expect a modern day love story to be both sassy and spiritual. But this novel is just that. So many stories about men and women are about the chase. We don't get to find out what happens when a couple enters a relationship together. This first novel by Alison Pick is about a young couple finding themselves while apart. As Adam puts it while on a solo canoe trip, "A rite of passage where you turn to face yourself." Holy is a word he doesn't usually like, but here it seems to apply. "The holiness of renouncing love, of seeing the self."

Adam and Ellen's personal unfolding takes place in the summer with Adam canoeing and camping in the Arctic, and Ellen navigating city life in Toronto. There's a rawness about Ellen. She's the one who has been left. While working in an independent art gallery, she's buoyed up by a co-worker and some new friends. Her experiences with them change her. The things she has learned "are inside her for good. Tuning into the moment. Turning into yourself." Adam's trip to the Arctic involves the drama of outdoor adventure. Here you can tell Alison has received the gifts and challenges of the wilderness herself as she describes with expertise. Adam engages in solitary moments that are quintessential to the book and help to make it the quirky, sensual and poignant novel it is. There are also gems of description that would lose their brilliance if described out of context here.

Alison has done a masterful job of taking the reader from Ellen to Adam unravelling both their stories while they are apart. We learn what they are doing in present time but we are also privy to their personal memories of one another. All this is written as if effortlessly. There is no sense of losing our way with the dual stories or the layers of memory-time. But Alison allows us our intelligence. She gives us just enough detail to engage our own imagination. Just enough description helps us visualize a scene ourselves so that it becomes a combination of the book's reality, our imagining and what we remember of our own experience in love and separation. This is the skill of the poet. She lets the story become ours.

In 2002, Alison was the Bronwen Wallace Award winner for most promising unpublished writer under 35 in Canada. In 2003, Raincoast Books published her first book, a book of poetry called Question & Answer. The title section of the book won the National (Canadian) Magazine Award for Poetry. Alison was born in Kitchener, Ontario, and frequently returns to that part of Canada from her present home in Newfoundland.

As a former Torontonian, I recognized Toronto street names and neighborhoods in The Sweet Edge. The whole book is infused with humour despite Ellen's tears in reaction to Adam's wanderings.

The quote from Thoreau's Walden Pond, from which the book's title is taken, compares a fact to a cimeter with the sun glimmering on it so as to create a sweet edge of division. What is the gift in that "sweet edge dividing you?" we may ask of ourselves and of Adam and Ellen.

Adam and Ellen become changed by their separate experiences. Yet they're ensconced within the small world of themselves. What they learn there can help to change the world.

by Mary Ann Moore
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
reviewing books by, for, and about women