Life Sentences: A Novel (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "WELL," THE BOOKSTORE MANAGER SAID, "it is Valentine's Day..." (more)
Key Phrases: obvious child, Calliope Jenkins, Callie Jenkins, Cassandra Fallows (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. This stunning stand-alone from bestseller Lippman (Baltimore Blues) examines the extraordinary power and fragility of memories. Writer Cassandra Fallows achieved critical and commercial success with an account of her Baltimore childhood growing up in the 1960s and a follow-up dealing with her adult marriages and affairs. The merely modest success of her debut novel leads her back to nonfiction and the possibility of a book about grade school classmate Calliope Jenkins. Accused of murdering her infant son, Jenkins spent seven years in prison steadfastly declining to answer any questions about the disappearance and presumed death of her son. Fallows (white) tries to reconnect with three former classmate friends (black) to compare memories of Jenkins and research her story. In the process, she discovers the gulf (partially racial) that separates her memories of events from theirs. Fallows's pursuit of Jenkins's story becomes a rich, complex journey from self-deception to self-discovery. 20-city author tour. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Patrick Anderson It would be difficult to discuss Laura Lippman's new novel, "Life Sentences," without reference to "What the Dead Know," the 2007 novel that was both a commercial and artistic breakthrough for the Baltimore-based writer. "What the Dead Know" started with a real-life tragedy -- the disappearance of two sisters, ages 10 and 12, from the Wheaton Plaza shopping mall in 1975 -- and proceeded to Lippman's fictional account of the suffering their loss imposed on their family, the arrival of a woman claiming to be one of the sisters and the final revelation of what had happened to the girls. It's a powerful story and a near-perfect exercise in storytelling. "Life Sentences" was also inspired by a real-life story, that of a Baltimore woman whose young son disappeared, whereupon she refused to make any statement and spent seven years in jail for contempt of court. Lippman's heroine in the novel, Cassandra Fallows, a successful writer, knew a girl in grade school who, as an adult, had that same experience. Cassandra sets out to write a book about herself and her childhood friends and how this girl, Callie Jenkins, eventually went to jail under suspicion of murdering her son. Cassandra returns to her home town of Baltimore and seeks the memories of old friends who no longer feel terribly friendly toward her -- and whose memories often differ dramatically from her own. In the third grade, Cassandra, who is white, became best friends with Donna, Tisha and Fatima, all of whom are African American, although race didn't matter much to them in those days. Callie Jenkins, also African American, was a plain, timid girl who was never really part of their circle. As the story unfolds, the novel's great strength lies in its characters, particularly Cassandra. This is a sly portrait of a certain kind of writer or journalist who is brash, driven by ego and convinced that getting the story justifies all kinds of bad behavior. Tisha, refusing to talk to her childhood friend, declares, "Maybe we're all just done being supporting players in the Cassandra Fallows show, starring Cassandra Fallows as Cassandra Fallows." Cassandra has written two best-selling memoirs, one about her childhood and the other about her two marriages and many affairs. Her friends are angered by what they see as mistakes -- about them -- in the first book and put off by the sexual candor of the second. Sex is never far from Cassandra's thoughts. She's having an affair with a married New York stockbroker, who's handy because he can be scheduled well in advance. However, she forgets him when she meets big, good-looking Reg Barr, a lawyer who is Tisha's brother and Donna's husband. Reg and Cassandra are both sexual adventurers, and their first interview quickly proceeds to the horizontal. As Cassandra admits, she "had never been very good at denying herself the men she wanted." And yet she is nearing 50, with many fears and uncertainties. Here she reflects on someone she has met: "What was it like to be an ugly woman? Cassandra, like every woman she knew, was full of self-doubt about her own appearance, had several moments every day when she was disappointed by the face she saw in the mirror. The older she got, the more she felt that way. Yet she also knew, on some level, that she would never be described as ugly." Lippman offers many delightful insights into the people in Cassandra's life. Cassandra says of her father, a college professor who leaves his wife for a younger woman: "My father believed in unconditional love, but only under certain conditions." She writes of her married New York lover: "Her hunch was that Bernard was a serial monogamist on parallel tracks -- he was faithful to Tilda, he was faithful to his lovers. Sort of like a subway line with an express track and a local track." Cassandra and her three childhood friends are the novel's central characters, and Lippman looks deeply into how they have related to one another over four decades, from pigtails to facelifts. Near the end, Cassandra reflects poignantly that she would like "to have Tisha as a friend again, to have someone in her life who knew the whole of her. Not just the parts she had written down and shaped, but every ragged detail, every playground moment, every tiny triumph, every enormous failure. Even the frowsy hair." By then, we see Cassandra as part monster, part little girl lost. But what of Callie, the friend who went to jail rather than answer questions about her son? In time, Lippman reveals what Callie did and why, but that seems to me the least effective part of the novel. In "What the Dead Know," the missing sisters were absolutely central to the story: Everything flowed from the horror of their absence. Here, the mystery of Callie's son is overshadowed by Lippman's tough-minded portrait of Cassandra and her sometime friends. But theirs is a strong and vivid story, one that will intrigue many readers -- especially, I suspect, women who find echoes of their own lives and friendships in this drama.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; BCE edition (March 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061128899
• ISBN-13: 978-0061128899
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #24,985 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a brilliant departure, March 12, 2009

By	Richard Cumming "richo" (cyberspace) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This stand-alone mystery might surprise some Lippman fans. It's more about relationships than crime. The main character is a successful memoir writer who returns to her childhood circle in Baltimore to write a third memoir about a former friend who may or may not have killed her own child.

The memoirist doesn't get a warm welcome from the old friends she wrote about in her previous books. This is a detective story in that she is forced to put together the puzzle of what really happened to that child. It is not what you might expect.

There's power, politics, and passion here. Lippman writes with intelligence and a reporter's insight into the mysteries of society's ills.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars more introspective fiction than mystery, May 5, 2009

By	Carrie LaGree "nomadreader" (Albany, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This novel featured narration by a variety of characters, but predominantly our protagonist, Cassandra Fallows, narrated. As a reader, I did not feel a connection with her. She's wonderfully articulate, introspective, and thoughtful, but I didn't find her interesting or lovable. I found the so-called mystery to be interesting enough to finish the book, but not interesting enough to make me care what happens to these characters. I expected this novel to be mostly a mystery, but I found it to be mostly about race relations surrounding the shooting of Martin Luther King, Jr. and how his death affected these characters. As a tale of race relations, it was awkward at times. It's not a bad book, but there is something about it that does not quite work. It's certainly better in theory than in practice. The idea of this book is riveting and fascinating, but the execution fell short. Still, I'm eager to read Laura Lippman's other books. She is a good writer, and I look forward to reading an actual mystery.

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lippman doesn't disappoint, March 16, 2009

By	Dogmother (Baltimore, MD USA) - See all my reviews

Reading the other reviews here answered one of my questions. As a Baltimore native, when I read any of Lippman's work, in addition to loving her presentation and story, there's the thrill of recognition - I know that street corner! I know that liquor store! I see now that not being a Baltimore native doesn't detract a bit.

Besides being a gripping story (I forced myself to ration it to 2 sittings so it would last the whole weekend)it made me reflect on memory. How true are my memories? How are they different from what others remember? What is the impact of a national historical moment - the MLK assassination in this case - on my local personal memories?

I like Tess more, but this Cassandra Fellows is fascinating. And I never get enough of Gloria! Please hurry Laura - write more stories!