On the top of the list of books-to-not-read while your mother is dying.I picked it up because I loved Colwin's prose, even though I didn't love Happy All the Time. Then I thought I would scream if I read about Billy yawning one more time. I put the book down but didn't put it away...Today I had to run to an appointment, where I knew I'd be kept waiting and rushed to grab a book to take alone. I picked this up for the first time in a couple years. I ended up finishing it about an hour after my meeting. Two years on my Currently Reading list and then done in less than two hours.I'm glad I waited for the right mindset. It was perfect for today and I loved it very much. Loved Billy's sense of humor, her narration of "Frank and Billy in bed", her references to Francis as "my mistress", her oblique signs of affection: "Sometimes I don't understand how I got so fond of a beat-up old person such as your." Her chant on the hell of social life: "They invited us. We invited them. They invited us. We invited them..." Oh my---when he says, "Guess what?" and she replies with, "You're pregnant."I think the title story belongs to a different novel in some ways, but I devoured it all. And this: One day he said, looking at her brother's old sweater and a skirt that might once have been olive green: "You're the one girl, Billy, whom you dread to hear say: I'm going to slip into something more comfortable."Of course she had the perfect rejoinder.And later..."Having a love affair, Francis was not unlike being the co-governor of a tiny, private kingdom in some remote country with only two inhabitants---you and the other co-governor. This kingdom had flora and fauna, a national bird, language, reference, conceit, a national anthem (Towards A Scarcity of Needs), cheers, songs, and gestures. It also had a national censorship---the taboo subjects are taboo. The idea that one of the co-governors has a life outside the kingdom always brings pain." >>>that describes well the initial stage of any love story.I like these two opposite characters so much, I want a full novel with them.
And my other bookie friend, Claudia, who is as well read and as obsesses as you ...... told me I HAD to read "Home Cooking"? and another with a similar name. My library doesn't have them but Claudia owns them so I am headed in her direction to borrow. Isn't it just too wonderful to find a prolific author that you love? Thank you, Leslie!
What do You think about Another Marvelous Thing (2001)?
Once I realized that my love of Laurie Colwin's work wasn't limited to one book, I decided to ration everything. Another Marvelous Thing was this year's dose and was lovely, short, but lovely. Whenever I read what someone has written about Colwin's writing, I always see "simple" and "elegant", and those are true, but when I think of Colwin, I think of her honesty. There's never a sense that it's a show. The characters might tend to live in a different world, or at least a different demographic, but the worries and experiences are not isolated to that group and everything is honest, if not always how you want things to end, except usually I never want the books to end. And I always read her books out in public, hoping that her family and friends know how much her work is appreciated.
—Marikka
