<p>^ I think Amy is short for Amelia.</p>
<p>^Oops, lol.</p>
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<p>That’s often a complaint I have with children in novels, but I didn’t feel it here. I thought Maya was a pretty accurate representation of a very bright toddler.</p>
<p>There was a touching suggestion of the “circle of life” in the way that Maya and A.J’s speech patterns mirrored each other at the beginning of her life and the end of his. Early in the novel, A.J. is reading baby Maya a book (Caps for Sale), and she wants to ask him a question (“Why do monkeys want hats?”), but she can’t do it because she does not yet have the vocabulary: “She has thoughts but not words” (p. 86). At the end of the novel, A.J. wants to talk to Maya—"Maya, he wants to say, I have figured it all out. But his brain won’t let him” (p. 249). He has thoughts but not words. </p>
<p>The name Alice also had me thinking of Alice in Wonderland. I not sure how it matches up with the story, but it came into my head. I also keep singing the song Alice’s Restaurant. :-" </p>
<p>I am so lazy…I am sitting here reading your posts and liking them (or helpful-ing them) when I feel like it. I was going to add that A Good Man-Darin is Hard to Find is a real nail polish name but ignatius beat me to it. </p>
<p>^^^ Ha - someone else who knows her nail polishes. ;
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<p>I just ran back across Lambiase telling Ismay over dinner what he sees in her:</p>
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<p>Maybe you all had Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in your head because that’s the book A.J. references when trying to explain Leon Friedman’s drug paraphernalia to Maya. :)</p>
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<p>Every once in a while, a passage in a book reads like the author had a scene from the soon-to-be-a-major-motion-picture in his or her head. That’s the way I saw the Leon Friedman event. Between the ex-Santa’s drunken masquerade, A.J. running around for a lighter, and back-to-back vomiting, the scene was pure cinematic farce, i.e., according to my dictionary, “a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.”</p>
<p>I guessed instantly that “Friedman” was a fraud. I find it hard to believe that the intelligent and cynical A.J. didn’t see through him immediately. </p>
<p>^^^ I probably did not put two and two together until Amelia starts talking with Leonora Ferris, the de facto author. I like how Amelia follows up by having Leonora read a passage from her book at the wedding. Amelia introduces her as a “college friend.” (At least, I assume it’s her.)</p>
<p>*I digress somewhat now but was reminded by the Best Books thread - Hazel Grace and Augustus from The Fault in Our Stars have an unfortunate author experience. While not an imposter, the favored author is so not as expected. Maybe it happens frequently enough that it’s an inside joke in the book world. </p>
<p>@mary13 "Every once in a while, a passage in a book reads like the author had a scene from the soon-to-be-a-major-motion-picture in his or her head. That’s the way I saw the Leon Friedman event. "</p>
<p>Mary, Your comment about the fake author scene resonated with me. I thought the same thing, and feel that the entire book is written like a screenplay. As NJTheatermom mentioned, there are many " cutesy" moments, and more than once I commented to my husband, I think this book was written by a 14 year old. ( of course, zevin is a Harvard educated turned screenwriter , who constructed a book, for book lovers, with all the right elements)
Most importantly, as Mary13 mentioned it’s like an onion, layers and layers, enhanced by the references to the short stories. So I’ve come to like and appreciate the book more as everyone discusses it here. </p>
<p>Now that I look back, I am more impressed with the authors skill. The simple, story telling, happy ending, direct fast moving plot, has all the elements of a feel good book, with an eye to the soon to be movie. ( zevin is a screenwriter) Perhaps, it was her goal to construct such a " fable" - a " storied " life. </p>
<p>What I loved the most about this book, is how we can defined by the books we love, they tell us who we are.
It would be interesting to discuss,at some point, books which have left a lasting “impression” on us, perhaps even changed our lives. </p>
<p>I was suspicious of Santa Leon as soon as A.J. meets him and thinks he "really doesn’t look like his author photo. But I supposed the real Leon had died and the agent wanted to do anything to boost book sales. </p>
<p>I buy Leona’s excuses for sending Leon.
[quote]
The book had already flopped. And sometimes you want to know…to see for yourself that your work has meant something to someone." <a href=“pg.%20152”>/quote</a></p>
<p>Ignatius said"
. True! For favored authors (Daniel) and non-authors alike (Ismay, A.J.). </p>
<p>I think it stinks that Ismay was left to cart the impostor, Leon, in his filthy vomit stained and drugged out state, back to the ferry. Fortunately A.J. mans up to help her this time. </p>
<p>The thought that Leon Friedman might be an imposter occurred to me pretty quickly. He didn’t look right, he had played Santa, he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do for the visit, and he was drinking way too much. All together it was too far fetched. I liked that the real author was there watching.</p>
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Good find, Mary. I forgot about that.</p>
<p>I like this:
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<p>We have also discussed in our group before about how interesting it is to see different readers’ reactions to the same story. This leads to question 10.
Yes, this is true! I react to stories based on circumstances in my own life. We all add new experiences to our lives over the years. I think we would have to react differently to re-reads based on those added experiences.</p>
<p>I’m reading some of the stories that were mentioned in the text and that buenavista provided links for on page 3 of this thread.</p>
<p>Chekov’s “The Beauties” was just wonderful. I do appreciate the fact that this book introduced me to some of these stories.</p>
<p>It’s happened to me. I read Middlemarch when I was 19 travelling alone in Europe and loved it. I tried it again when my kids were babies and just could not get into it at all. I read The Lord of the Rings for the first time when I was 11 and read it every year for at least 20 years. I read it again when my kids were reading it and was very sad that it was no longer my favorite book in the world. Though I did still enjoy it, its flaws were much more apparent. There are other books though that I seem to be able to read in the same way and just get transported back to the way they made me feel the first time. Georgette Heyers are like that, though I reread them infrequently now. I can still read The Swallows and Amazons with every bit as much enjoyment as when I was nine, though I am somewhat amazed at those parents! “Better drowned than duffers. If not duffers won’t drown.”</p>
<p>@NJTheatreMOM thanks for suggesting " The Beauties", not one of the gruesome short stories, and the awe expressed by the author seeing the beauties makes me think this is how AJ viewed Maya. </p>
<p>What was so striking to me about the Chekhov story was the observation that being in the presence of beauty makes people sad. It’s true, I guess, but I’d never thought about it before.</p>
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<p>Part of this might be Zevin’s Young Adult fiction roots, and part of it might be savvy marketing. The book is easy-to-read (and “clean”), making it marketable for any age group. At the same time, it offers options (via the short stories) for readers looking for more depth. In any case, I think it’s deliberate. The author may sound like a 14 year old, but in my opinion, she’s dumb as a fox, as the saying goes.</p>
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<p>I have to say, I wasn’t too impressed by the excerpt from The Late Bloomer. I think pre-Maya A.J. would have had some harsh commentary (the words “jejune crap” come to mind). It struck me as kind of treacly – but I am probably not reading it at the right time in my life!</p>
<p>Re books that affected us deeply, the novel that I did read at just the right time was Kristen Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. It has always been one of my favorites. Kristen and I had a lot in common, once upon a time. I haven’t read it for years, and now I’m a little afraid to, lest I have mathmom’s Middlemarch experience.</p>
<p>I liked the other short story about beautiful women - “The Girls in their Summer Dresses”. Though like nearly all the stories even when it was funny it was sad. I don’t feel the book is ultimately sad, but the stories were.</p>
<p>What do you think of AJ’s advice to his daughter? “Pick someone who thinks you are the only person in the room?” I think you need to commit to the person you are with, but like having a dream college, I think believing that there is only one perfect person for you out there, is probably not a good idea in the long term. </p>
<p>I suspect the memoir story was inspired by this true story: <a href=“Anthony Godby Johnson - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Godby_Johnson</a> I actually remember hearing about this, so I wasn’t all together surprised by that particular plot twist.</p>
<p>Books that have affected me are so specific to certain time periods of my own life and tied to events and moods. I went through a 1920s phase when I read works of Fitzgerald and Hemingway, and some non-fiction about their lives. One of my favorites in this stretch was Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. I’ve read it again several times, but it has always felt out of context in some way, not so much of a fantasy, because it wasn’t in that particular stretch of summer when I was contemplating life in France during the early 20th century. </p>
<p>I remember loving the writing of Marilyn French, especially her fiction like Her Mother’s Daughter when I was much younger. I suspect that now, I might dislike it much with its overtly (and perhaps dated) feminist themes since my own views have had time to mature a bit, especially after raising my own children. </p>
<p>I received Aimee Bender’s book of short stories, Willful Creatures today from the library and just read “Ironhead”. What a beautiful story capturing the depths of a mother’s love and the cruelty of our world to those children who are different. I will read more of Aimee Bender. </p>
<p>And speaking of cruelty and sadness, right before “Ironhead”, I also reread “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield. Thank you for the link, buenavista!</p>
<p>I’m so glad we’re having this group discussion of so many themes and stories.</p>
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<p>I think A.J. meant that he hoped Maya would find someone who would want her as the one and only woman in his life (unlike the husband in “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses”). I don’t think he meant that there is only one perfect mate out there – on the contrary, A.J. would be the last person to hold that view, since he had two great marriages.</p>
<p>By the way, for those who read “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses,” what are we supposed to take away from that ending? A.J. called it a “twist,” but to me it was just a confirmation of the husband’s shallowness – that he can’t see any woman beyond her body parts, not even his own wife.</p>
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<p>I am so glad you liked it, too!</p>
<p>I read Richard Hughes’ A High Wind in Jamaica when I was on a Hughes kick as a young adult. Before I read that book, I had read his novels The Fox in the Attic and The Wooden Shepherdess and really liked them.</p>
<p>At the time (I was a single person in my 20s), I was fascinated by the child characters in A High Wind in Jamaica. I thought, “Hughes really seems to know something.” Later, after I was a mom myself, I re-read the book…and I couldn’t stand it. I thought, “No, no, no, he’s got it all wrong!”</p>