My mom has been complaining that my blog is too focused on books about my demographic: people (mostly women) in their 30s. I do take issue with that — see recent posts on This Boy’s Life, The Crimson Portrait, Lost City Radio — but I admit that I tend to be drawn to books about people like me. Don’t we all?
So here’s a book about empty nesters: Second Honeymoon, by Joanna Trollope. Trollope is one of those writers I’ve seen in stores and in reviews, but I haven’t read anything by her before. This book looks good, though. I first learned of it from The Island Bookstore‘s newsletter. Here’s what the newsletter said:
Now that her third and last child has left the nest, Edie Boyd’s life turns suddenly and uncomfortably silent. She begins to yearn for the maternal intimacy that now seems lost to her forever. Be careful what you wish for…Before long, a mother-and-child reunion is in full swing: life away from the nest has proven to be unexpectedly daunting to the children, who one-by-one return home, bringing their troubles. With an unannounced new phase of parenthood suddenly stretching ahead of her, Edie finds her home more crowded than ever. In this touching, artful novel, Joanna Trollope has created a family drama for the ages, a moving story of work, love and eternal parenthood.
From The Seattle Times:
For baby-boomer parents with young-adult children, the parents’ conflicting emotions about the kids moving out are powerfully portrayed here, in scenes that will ring true to readers on both sides of the Atlantic. Finally, Edie comes to realize that her desire to “keep everything safe … to make everything all right for all of them” and “to be back in control of things” can never be fulfilled. But she and Russell (as well as their children) find a new way to go forward…. Sharply detailed subsidiary characters make this a richly imagined novel about family relationships, almost the equal of Trollope’s earlier, searing Other People’s Children.
Not everyone likes this book, though. From A Book a Week Blog:
This book put me in a bad mood. I had to force myself to finish it. There’s nothing wrong with how it’s written: The story moves along in a straightforward way, the characters are fully formed, the events plausible, and the resolution logical. It’s the story of a couple whose three children have grown and moved out, and then bounce back home, then move out again. Character traits include pathetic (Edie, the mother), spoiled (Rosa, the daughter), clueless (Ben, the younger son), hostile (Matt, the older son), disconnected (Russell, the father), angry (Viv, the aunt), and ridiculous (Max, the uncle). Only the cat, Arsie, is at all likable. Yuck. What a disappointment. I usually like Joanna Trollope because she is so skilled at creating truly realistic families. I guess this family is realistic. They’re just not people I would like to spend any time with.
But then there’s this from Bookpage:
Joanna Trollope’s Second Honeymoon is another wonderful dispatch from the British novelist, who reports from the front line of home and family like no one else. Trollope manages, book after book, to keep her unique take on modern living not just fresh, but intriguing. She is at her most sublime when writing about the most conventional details of and musings on daily life. Consider Edie’s meditation on, of all things, eating breakfast: “He ate like Ben, with that peculiar combination of indifference and absorption that seemed to characterize hungry young men, consuming two bowls of cereal and a banana and four slices of toast as if they were simultaneously vital and of no consequence at all.”
Second Honeymoon is Trollope at her very best: precise and engaging. In true Trollope fashion, she crafts a story filled with surprises, nothing like what you’d hoped it would be. Somehow, it’s better.
Has anyone out there read this book?