Author: Martha Moody
Book Stats: 501 pages (paperback); Penguin, 2001
Book Summary/Description:
From Publishers Weekly:
From Publishers Weekly
First novels that track a pair of friends from college days through their subsequent lives aren’t exactly uncommon, but Moody’s is so freshly observed and gifted with such a palpable sense of the ravages of time that it feels utterly new. Clare, the narrator, is a prematurely cynical Ohio girl, daughter of a left-wing schoolteacher, who says up-front that all she wanted out of college when she went to Oberlin in 1973 was “unrest and demonstrations.” Sally Rose is her roommate, an apparently nave, sheltered kid from a wealthy Los Angeles family whose occasional sly wit and perfect word choices appeal to Clare. The girls grow close, and soon Clare is making regular visits to the big house off Mulholland Drive where Sid, Sally’s indulgent, wise-guy father, seems to cast a spell over a happy household. Sally never questions the source of the family wealth, but inquisitive Clare does and that is the first of many shocks that unfold as the shadows begin to gather around the Roses. Sally’s bright, perky younger brother, Ben, turns into a haunted druggie; their mother, ace cook Esther, becomes increasingly remote; Sid begins a long decline into Alzheimer’s. Yet despite their geographical distance, the two girls, Sally going into law of a peculiarly California kind, Clare becoming a hardheaded doctor with a specialty in AIDS, never lose their deep attachment, which somehow sustains them through a darkening landscape. They both suffer their share of unhappy relationships and here Moody’s skills at character drawing, already clear in her portraits of Sid and Ben, take full rein and both come to rueful realization of their limitations, and those of life itself. Even in its dying fall, however, the book never loses its edge, at once compassionate and humorous, nor its moving conviction that a strong friendship between women can be one of life’s most powerful relationships.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Book Club Discussion Date: April 22, 2008
Look, Mom, Look! Review of This Book:
I have only started to read this book. So far, I really like it. However, according to the reviews on Amazon, it’s at the end that the reader either loves it or hates it. We shall see how it ends!
July 31, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Now that you have won your $30 Amazon gift certificate, you can buy us all our next book! Just kidding. As if I would ever buy a book when my cheap self can get it at the li-berry.
August 4, 2007 at 5:06 pm
I’ll have to share my “dutch” secret with Big Binder for those of us who get impatient with the libray system.
August 8, 2007 at 5:54 pm
I just finished this 500 page book in 5 days. That is how good I thought it was!
August 15, 2007 at 4:09 am
I just finished the book tonight. It rattled me a little at the end.
September 12, 2007 at 3:00 am
I need to get reading! Even though I have read this (as you know; ’cause I borrowed your book!) before I need to brush up. I just can’t put “Buy Baby, Buy” down because it is about marketing to children and (as you also know) I have some pretty strong feelings about that subject…
But I promise; I will lighten up for a few weeks and read this book before book club. I can’t wait to discuss it!!
September 27, 2007 at 12:33 am
I’m another one who read the book years ago, but obviously need to read it again and now I’m panicking as I see bookclub is less than a week away. Miss Procrastination Station was wondering if anyone had a copy of the book I could borrow? THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
January 12, 2008 at 1:58 am
Oh, this must be updated soon!