A very kind EDIWTB reader (and an old friend) gave me a Book Lover’s Page-a-Day calendar for 2008. Yesterday’s entry went like this:
Reprinted after defeaning clamor from the smitten readers of this 2001 book, Disturbances In the Field is routinely described by anyone who has read it as without question the best book they’ve ever read. Readers also say, brace yourself. Life ain’t easy, and neither are the truths here.
So I went to two bookstores during lunch today to try to find this book, but neither of them had it.
Amazon has a lot of glowing reader reviews of the book – most 5-star — but no synopsis.
Powell’s bookstore describes the book as follows:
As powerful now as when first published in 1983, Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s third novel established her as one of her generation’s most assured writers. In this long-awaited reissue; readers can again warm to this acutely absorbing story. According to Lydia Rowe’s friend George, a philosophizing psychotherapist, a "disturbance in the field" is anything that keeps us from realizing our needs. In the field of daily experiences, anything can stand in the way of our fulfillment, he explains–an interrupting phone call, an unanswered cry. But over time we adjust and new needs arise. But what if there’s disturbance you can’t get past? In this look at a girl’s, then a wife and mother’s, coming of age, Schwartz explores the questions faced by all whose visions of a harmonious existence are jolted into disarray. The result is a novel of captivating realism and lasting grace.
That is pretty much all I was able to find about this book. Has anyone out there read it? If so – is it really that good? What’s the scoop?