About this title: Jo Becker, a happily married middle-aged woman, finds virtually every aspect of her stability threatened when an old friend named Eli Mayhew comes to town. Eli reminds Jo of her life as a counterculture free spirit in the '60s, when the murder of her best friend--still unsolved--shattered Jo's life. Now, 30 years later, Jo finds that old issues ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 01/1999
ISBN-13:9780375401121ISBN:0375401121
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 288 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Date Published: 05/2000
ISBN-13:9780375411786ISBN:037541178X
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 288 p. read more
"This book was difficult for me to "get into." I normally love Sue Miller's novels and find that her lyrical style and insightful descriptions of her characters and their motivations are something that I can really identify with. I think what happened here is that Jo the main character was just not likeable. I didn't "buy" her justifications for her secrets and her actions. She was self serving and manipulative. The second half of the book is when the pace picks up and I became more engaged with the story line. Bits and pieces that at the time seemed to be long and drawn out descriptions come into play and all seems to make sense in a taut suspenseful conclusion. All in all a fairly good read but not my favorite Sue Miller novel"
"I just joined Goodreads in April, and added all the books I've read since then, totally forgetting about this book. Which, by the way, I read 3 weeks ago.
My grandmother gave me a copy to read, so I dutifully did, and I did enjoy the author's excellent use of imagery, and I can say she has a strong grasp on language. In such a way it stands out in a pleasurable manner.
That said, if I didn't remember reading it, I can't give it more than 2 stars. ALSO, I am a 27 year old unmarried woman who is still in school. This book is not written for my demography. It's about like a 50 something year old woman whose kids have just moved out of the house reflecting on her past life and her relationship with her husband."
"Can we say Boring? Oh it really was...She jumped from her current life to her teenage years back and forth like a ping pong ball..And when I finished the book I sat there question what was the whole point of reading it? I mean yes there was an issue that was solved but it just didn't say much about the story. I found a review by another woman on good reads and I have to say I agree with her 100 percent...She says I liked this book until I realized that I has 1/3 of the way through and couldn't figure out where things were going. And, I figured out I didn't like the lying, cheating central character, who was writing from her own perspective (first person) and absolutely oblivious to how she was hurting people. Even at the end of the book, when she'd had her "epiphany," it was no epiphany, and she did not change, she just found better ways to cover up her lying and cheating. That about sums up how I felt reading it."
""When I was most confused by her, it helped me to remember myself at her age---just that egocentric, just that lost, just that uncaring about the pain I might be causing others, because I felt I was in so much pain myself. " p 133
"We didn't know what would happen next: that was our great gift. The gift of youth. The thing we miss, it seems to me, no matter what we've made of our lives, as we get older. When we do know what will happen next. And next and next, and then last. And that is what I felt again after my coffee with Eli--that sense of a surprise, that heady sense of not knowing, that gift of a possible turn in the path." p 178
"As one does when threatened with loss, I fell in love with him again." p 213
"It seems we need someone to know us as we are---with all we have done--and forgive us. WE need to tell. We need to be whole in someon's sight: Know this abut me, and yet love me." p 261"
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