I started reading "Daughter: A Novel" by Claudia Dey today. According to Mona Dean, to be loved by your father is to be loved by God. Mona is a playwright, actress, and daughter of a man who is famous for a great novel. However, her father's needs and insecurities significantly impact the women in his family, including Mona, her sister, her half-sister, and their mothers.
by Claudia Dey
I started reading “Daughter: A Novel” by Claudia Dey today. According to Mona Dean, to be loved by your father is to be loved by God. Mona is a playwright, actress, and daughter of a man who is famous for a great novel. However, her father’s needs and insecurities significantly impact the women in his family, including Mona, her sister, her half-sister, and their mothers.
Mona’s father’s infidelity shattered her childhood, causing her to be in opposition to her stepmother, who also suffered from his actions. Mona’s father begins a new affair, and he confides in her. She enjoys his attention painfully and parasitically. When he confesses to his wife, Mona is blamed for the disruption, punished for her father’s actions, and kicked out of the family.
Mona’s life is chaotic, and she struggles to regain stability. Only when she experiences a profound and defining loss does she begin to replace absent love with real love? Pushed to the brink, she must decide how she wants to live, what Mona needs to say, and the risks she’s willing to take to say it.
Claudia Dey provides penetrating insight and devilish humor to chronicle our most intimate lives in “Daughter.” It’s an obsessive and blazing examination of the forces that drive us to become, create, and break free.
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by Anna Quindlen
I started reading Anna Quindlen‘s “After Annie: A Novel” today. Forty years ago, my wife Jan and I used to read Ms. Quindlen’s column “Life in the Thirties” in The New York Times, even if we didn’t have time to read anything else. We clipped and saved each column, which helped us manage getting older with children. I am reading “After Annie,” which is about how love can overcome loss.
Anna Quindlen, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Still Life with Bread Crumbs and One True Thing, is known for her insightful wisdom on family, friendship, and the bonds that unite us. Her latest novel explores the power of love to overcome loss and adversity.
The story centers around the Brown family and their matriarch, Annie. When Annie suddenly passes away, the family is forced to navigate life without their beloved wife, mother, and friend. Bill, Annie’s husband, struggles to cope with the loss, while Annemarie, her best friend, must confront the bad habits she once overcame with Annie’s help. Ali, Annie’s eldest child, must take on new responsibilities to care for her younger brothers and father.
Although Annie is no longer physically present, her memory continues to guide and inspire those who love her. Her voice resonates in their minds, offering them comfort, wisdom, and clarity. Through the power of her love, Annie gives her family the strength they need to move on without her. They learn that even though their beloved Annie is gone, she will always be with them in spirit.
“After Annie” is a poignant and touching story exploring the unanticipated ways adversity can transform our lives. With her signature style that strikes an emotional chord, Quindlen delivers a heartwarming tale about the tenacity of love and how it can triumph over even the most formidable obstacles. This story of hope is a testament to the enduring strength of the human spirit and its ability to rise above life’s challenges. It inspires us to believe in the power of love and its capacity to reshape our lives for the better.
by Deborah Willis
I began reading “Girlfriend on Mars: A Novel” by Deborah Willis today. It’s a humorous, touching, and captivating debut novel that satirizes the idea of space travel funded by billionaires and tells a love story that spans across planets. Alic Munro, one of my preferred authors, praised the book’s emotional depth and range, as well as the author’s exceptional clarity and skill in writing.
Amber Kivinen is vying for a chance to join MarsNow and be part of the first human-led mission to Mars. She is one of twenty-three reality TV contestants worldwide, including an attractive Israeli soldier named Adam, a charming Canadian named Pichu, and several science enthusiasts and aspiring influencers. Billionaire Geoff Task is sponsoring the mission; only two seats are available.
Meanwhile, Kevin, Amber’s boyfriend of fourteen years, is left behind as Amber pursues her dream. He spends his days caring for their hydroponic weed business in their expensive basement apartment in Vancouver while wondering why the woman he loves is so determined to leave the planet with someone else.
In a reality TV show similar to Survivor and Star Trek, Amber participates in challenges in various parts of the world. She seems to develop feelings for Adam, but it’s unclear whether it’s genuine or a strategy to avoid getting eliminated. Furthermore, given that the technology to return to Earth from Mars is not yet available, would Amber be willing to abandon everything to become a billionaire’s experimental subject on the red planet? Even though the rainforest is currently ablaze, Geoff Task has purchased New Zealand, and Kevin may be struggling with depression, is there any chance for a brighter future on Earth?
Girlfriend on Mars is an impressive first work from a brilliant and unique writer, as described by Molly Antopol. It presents a satirical critique of our societal desire for fame and fortune amid environmental turmoil. At the same time, it delves into humanity’s fundamental yearning and eternal cliché: love.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
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by Allegra Goodman
Set against the backdrop of the sixteenth century, Allegra Goodman‘s Isola brings to life the gripping saga of a remarkable woman’s fight for survival. Journey with Marguerite as she battles the harsh realities of being marooned on a desolate island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in the heart of New France, because she dared to love the wrong man, leading her to this lonely exile.
Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. However, her world is turned upside down when she becomes an orphan. Her guardian, an enigmatic and unpredictable man, squanders her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. The journey takes an unexpected turn when Marguerite is accused of betrayal, leading to her brutal punishment and abandonment on a small island.
Once a child of privilege, adorned in gowns and pearls, Marguerite now finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather changes and the island becomes blanketed in ice, she uncovers a faith she never knew she needed.
Allegra Goodman is the author of six novels, including the national bestseller Sam, a Read with Jenna selection; two short story collections; and a book for young readers. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere, and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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by Amy Bloom
Having surpassed my Goodreads 2022 reading goal, I wanted a lite, historical fiction book and found this one in the e-library. Lucky Us by Amy Bloom is a book that hooked me on the opening line – “My father’s wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us.” I enjoyed reading it and highly recommend it.
The first section in Hollywood was the one I found less appealing. Partly that is because I identified with Eva, and she does not fulfill her leading role until the last two sections. Its depiction of how people survived the way years by sometimes is a reminder of our inner resilience.
Goodreads provides the following summary.
So begins this remarkable novel by Amy Bloom, whose critically acclaimed Away was called “a literary triumph” (The New York Times). Lucky Us is a brilliantly written, deeply moving, fantastically funny novel of love, heartbreak, and luck.
Disappointed by their families, Iris, the hopeful star and Eva the sidekick, journey through 1940s America in search of fame and fortune. Iris’s ambitions take the pair across the America of Reinvention in a stolen station wagon, from small-town Ohio to an unexpected and sensuous Hollywood, and to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island.
With their friends in high and low places, Iris and Eva stumble and shine through a landscape of big dreams, scandals, betrayals, and war. Filled with gorgeous writing, memorable characters, and surprising events, Lucky Us is a thrilling and resonant novel about success and failure, good luck and bad, the creation of a family, and the pleasures and inevitable perils of family life, conventional and otherwise. From Brooklyn’s beauty parlors to London’s West End, a group of unforgettable people love, lie, cheat, and survive in this story of our fragile, absurd, heroic species.
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by Audrey Blake
I did something I had not done in decades. After finishing the Big Library Read of 2022, The Girl in His Shadow, by Audrey Blake, I immediately started reading the sequel, The Surgeon’s Daughter. The protagonist, Nora Beady, was such a strong female lead that I could not wait to find out what happened next. In the sequel, Nora Beady, the only female student at a prestigious medical school in Bologna, is a rarity. Nora’s tenacity and passion reminded me of Jan, the love of my life.
In the 19th century, women were supposed to remain at home and raise children, so her unconventional, indelicate ambitions to become a licensed surgeon offended the men around her.
Ms. Blake has a split personality— because she is the creative alter ego of writing duo Jaima Fixsen and Regina Sirois, two authors who met as finalists of a writing contest and have been writing together happily ever since.
The pen name – Audrey Blake – was in response to the publishers recommending a more straightforward author’s name. Regina’s daughter is named Audrey, and Jaima’s son is Blake.
The Surgeon’s Daughter is the forty-fourth book I have read this year and the ninety-ninth since the beginning of 2019. My Goodreads goal for 2022 was twenty-two books.
The Goodreads summary provides an overview.
Under constant scrutiny, Nora’s successes are taken for granted; her mistakes used as proof that women aren’t suited to the field.
Everything changes when she allies herself with Magdalena Morenco, the sole female doctor on-staff. Together the two women develop new techniques to improve a groundbreaking surgery: the Cesarean section. It’s a highly dangerous procedure and the research is grueling, but even worse is the vitriolic response from men. Most don’t trust the findings of women, and many can choose to deny their wives medical care.
Already facing resistance on all sides, Nora is shaken when she meets a patient who will die without the surgery. If the procedure is successful, her work could change the world. But a failure could cost everything: precious lives, Nora’s career, and the role women will be allowed to play in medicine.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Sigrid Nunez
The Friend: A Novel by Sigrid Nunez is a moving story of love, friendship, grief, healing, and the magical bond between a woman and her dog. When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. I understand the positives and negatives of having a dog help with grief, but I cannot have one where I live.
One line that resonated with me was,
You can’t hurry, love, as the song goes. You can’t hurry, grief, either.
Far too often, widows are in a hurry, not unlike young lovers. We need to learn patience and remind ourselves that the more we love, the more we will grieve.
I often said that Jan would replace me with a dog if she survived me.
I recommend this book.
The Goodreads summary provides a concise overview,
The woman’s own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.
While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog’s care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them.
Elegiac and searching, The Friend is both a meditation on loss and a celebration of human-canine devotion.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
