Wadsworth seems afraid to venture outside straightforward narrative realism—the characters we care about disappear well...
A sometimes charming but more often inefficient debut about “a fifty-nine-year-old woman, happily married, infatuated with a young woman half her age.”
Mrs. Medina married Mr. Medina, a famous cellist, when she was 36 and he almost 60. It’s now two-and-a-half decades later, and while Patrick is on his way out, Mercedes is just hitting cruising speed. The two have had enough of a wonderful life that Mrs. Medina worries over the size of the chunks of meat that she cuts for her husband and closely monitors the one cigar he’s allowed each month. Still, when Mercedes’ latent instincts awaken with the arrival of Lennie, a young beautiful woman who works in a local flower store and who may have some dirty dealings, the impulse cannot be ignored. Mercedes confides in a university colleague, and it’s nice to know that even at the highest reaches of academia the simple phrase “I think I’m in love” can cause the stuffiest of intellectuals to abandon their scholarship and titter like teenagers. Mrs. Medina even tells Patrick about the affair—but not to worry: Patrick has an eye for the young “stacked” ones, too, and he’s a good sport about it. Patrick becomes a consistent source of humor and poignancy, and his portrait as a lesson on aging is worth the price of admission—but he’s not the main character. Mercedes’ affair comes and goes, and Patrick dies, and it’s a good thing that only the rich become lovelorn because in this world a broken heart is a serious condition requiring expensive therapy and a live-in cook. Mercedes in truth seems a little light. When she is slow to catch on to Lennie’s shenanigans, it undermines her weight as a serious intellect. Final message? Everyone loves beautiful young women—good thing there are enough to go around.
Wadsworth seems afraid to venture outside straightforward narrative realism—the characters we care about disappear well before the end.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-55583-633-X
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Alyson
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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