From Publishers Weekly
In this artfully written but somewhat manipulative first novel, Villegas sets out to explore the very modern country of living (and loving) with AIDS. Dolores Meredith, realtor in a small Northern California town, poet manque and part-time creative writing teacher, finally sells the Leland House?a gorgeous but dilapidated Queen Anne relic that she adores?to Austin Barclay, a successful lawyer newly returned from New York to teach and mellow. Inevitably, they become involved, fall in love and renovate together?and then their love is tested. Austin learns he is HIV positive, and Dolores must decide whether to walk away or stay with him to the bitter end. Because the story is so simple and predictable, the pleasure of the text is found in the style. Each chapter begins with a poem by Emily Dickinson, which serves as the impetus for a prose meditation on a certain aspect of love. Villegas's voice is charmingly mannered (an echo of the poet) but never attains Dickinson's unblinking vision of life. The character Jorge, Dolores' six year old barrio poetry student, for example, is endowed with a very real sweet intelligence but not the streetwise flip side. Such patronizing characterization isn't limited to Jorge. The very fairy tale-like delicacy of the writing and the glossy portraits of even minor characters is in some ways an insult to the rough world the writer observes but does not really inhabit. Villegas has written a poignant phrasebook that easily calls forth tears, but she hasn't captured the emotional complexity that comes with living?with or without illness and tragedy. First serial rights to Good Housekeeping; audio rights to Brilliance Audio. (Feb.) FYI: In another of those publishing coincidences, this book bears the same title as one by Sue Ellen Bridgers, reviewed Sept. 9.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
For years, Dolores Meredith conditioned herself to settle for second best. What she really wanted was a literary career, and to marry, and to have children. Instead, she is a six-figure-income California realtor, still single at fortysomething, and has recently concluded a lengthy affair with a married man. Austin Barclay, a graduate of Yale Law, is a partner in a prestigious New York law firm and has never married. Wealthy but unfulfilled, Austin leaves the East Coast and returns to California as a law professor. Wanting a fine old character-laden home to renovate, Austin contacts Meredith Realty, and thus begins the whirlwind romance between Dolores and Austin. Recognizing their fortune in finding one another, they are deliriously happy until Austin tests positive for HIV. Villegas's first novel ranks high in the love story genre and should be extraordinarily popular. Recommended.?Mary Ellen Elsbernd, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Hts.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Dolores Meredith puts her heart into the real estate she sells and takes pride in her innate talent for matching potential buyers with what they really want. Yet her profession is greatly removed from her passion for writing poetry. After a college professor shattered her dreams of being what her dad proudly called "the West Coast twentieth-century Emily Dickinson," she flees into the "delicate art" of selling houses. However, her love life is bleak. When Austin Barclay returns from practicing law in New York City to his hometown of Woodland, California, and buys the Leland House, an old Queen Anne classic in which she has taken special interest, there's an immediate attraction. Both single and in their forties, these two motivated, highly educated individuals fall in love. However, the loving relationship each had so yearned for is nearly abandoned when a cursory blood test reveals that he is HIV-positive. Emily Dickinson stanzas, which begin each chapter and foreshadow the plot, are appropriately selected (often tearfully so) in this promising first novel. Jennifer Henderson
