Why Did I Ever [Paperback]

Mary Robison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 2002

After a ten-year silence, Mary Robison has emerged with a novel so beguiling and funny that it has brought critics and her live-reading audiences to their feet. Why Did I Ever takes us along on the darkest of private journeys. The story, told by a woman named Money Breton, is submitted like a furious and persuasive diary--a tale as fierce and taut as its fictional teller.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Robison has constructed her third novel, the first in a decade, as a series of brief segments (527 in all), reflecting narrator Money Breton's ADD syndrome. Because she is undermedicated, Breton must struggle to maintain her concentration long enough to keep her Hollywood script-writing position and her sense of humor. By night, Breton is hammering nails or painting every object in her house; by day, she seeks to provide the right bits of advice and the right amount of motherly support to her methadone-addicted daughter and to her son, the victim of an unspeakable crime. With questionable assistance from several well-meaning friends, including a filthy-rich boyfriend with a limited vocabulary, Breton balances her difficulties long enough to see the proverbial thin ray of light at the end of the tunnel. Robison's characters are vivid, colorful, and likable, and their story is absorbing. Her humorous presentation does not cheapen the tragic content of her novel but realistically portrays one method of survival. Highly recommended for all public and academic fiction collections. Rebecca A. Stuhr, Grinnell Coll. Libs., IA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker

Money Breton is struggling to keep it together: she detests her job (which she is in danger of losing) as a Hollywood script doctor; her daughter is a recovering heroin addict; her son was the victim of a violent crime; her boyfriend isn't so sharp; and she watches a great deal of TV with a man who's almost—but not quite—a perfect companion. If all this sounds grim, it is, and yet there's grace and humor in the slippage between the ideal and the real: sure, we fall short, Robison seems to say, but more often than not a shrug and a quip save us from desperation. The author, who is known as a minimalist, here creates a narrative out of fragmented paragraphs, and the book works best when she strips Money's most explicit fears away. At these moments, a simple sentence fragment—"Canoe, moon, ukelele"—seems a close to perfect expression of lost beauty.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint (October 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582432554
• ISBN-13: 978-1582432557
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #160,079 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect, October 28, 2001

By 

Susan Bobst (Silver Spring, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Why Did I Ever: A Novel (Hardcover)

Do you remember, back in the mid-eighties, when the world seemed to be overflowing with short fiction, and you read your first Raymond Carver short story? And you thought "Oh my God, this is wonderful, perfect, classic. His work will stand the test of time and then some."?
Well, that is exactly how I felt when I read "Why Did I Ever." Each sentence, each empty space between sentences resonates with depth and meaning. Each word is exactly right, and placed perfectly. The entire novel is like a poem in its precision -- you feel like you can taste the words, they sit just perfectly on your tongue.
And then, if all of that isn't enough, the book is hysterical. Laugh-out-loud, follow-people-around-quoting-it, unbelievably funny. In the humor category it reminded me of Carrie Fisher, but it is more like if Carrie Fisher wrote like T.S. Eliot, Fisher with something to say, Fisher with the ability to write like an angel, albeit a dark angel. This book was by far the best book I've read this year, if not in the last several years. If I could give it 10 stars, I would.
Mary Robison is an author that will withstand the test of time and I can't wait, really cannot wait to see what she does next.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Be Fooled - This is a "Must Read", January 7, 2002

By 

Mary Lins (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why Did I Ever: A Novel (Hardcover)

Don't be fooled by the short seqences and the fast pace of Mary Robison's wry and tragic novel, "Why Did I Ever", into thinking that this is a "light" or an "easy" book. Quite the contrary; each section, however brief, is finely crafted and perfectly in tune. The pathos that runs through the story - and we get it in increasing doses as the novel unfolds - is as heartbreaking as the humor is "laugh out loud" funny. This novel is a gem, and one that I will certainly read a second and third time in case I missed anything as I was gulping it down.

Brava, Ms. Robison.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars slicing, dicing style!, December 9, 2001

By 

Joni Rodgers (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Why Did I Ever: A Novel (Hardcover)

To use a cliche like "I couldn't put it down" would insult the razor sharp, intense style of this book, but I actually kept reading it while having a mammogram! I sat in the parking lot of the imaging clinic until I'd finished the last page, then drove home and discovered I'd put my shirt on insideout. Guess that pretty much says it all. I truly hope this book gets the attention it richly deserves.