   |
        |
|
 |
|
|
About the book
With wry candor and tender humor, acclaimed novelist Ayelet Waldman has
crafted a strikingly beautiful novel for our time, tackling the absurdities
of modern life and reminding us why we love some people no matter what.
For Emilia Greenleaf, life is by turns a comedy of errors and an emotional
minefield. Yes, she's a Harvard Law grad who married her soul mate. Yes,
they live in elegant comfort on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But with
her one-and-only, Jack, came a stepson-- a know-it-all preschooler named
William who has become her number one responsibility every Wednesday
afternoon. With William, Emilia encounters a number of impossible
pursuits-such as the pursuit of cab drivers who speed away when they see
William's industrial-strength car seat and the pursuit of lactose-free,
strawberry-flavored, patisserie-quality cupcakes, despite the fact that
William's allergy is a figment of his over-protective mother's imagination.
As much as Emilia wants to find common ground with William, she becomes
completely preoccupied when she loses her newborn daughter. After this, the
sight of any child brings her to tears, and Wednesdays with William are
almost impossible. When his unceasing questions turn to the baby's death,
Emilia is at a total loss. Doesn't anyone understand that self-pity is a
full-time job? Ironically, it is only through her blundering attempts to
bond with William that she finally heals herself and learns what family
really means.
"How a five-year-old manages to make the adults in his life hew to the love he holds for them is the sweet treat in this honest, brutal, bitterly funny slice of life. When Emelia's day-old daughter, Isabel, succumbs to SIDS, her own life stalls. She can't work; she can't sleep; Central Park, once her personal secret garden, now is a minefield of happy mother-child dyads. Since Isabel's death, husband Jack's only solace for the guilt of breaking up his sexless marriage with Carolyn for Emelia's (now-absent) passion and love is joint custody of William, now five. What Emelia cannot bear most are Wednesdays, when she must cross the park to collect William at the 92nd Street Y preschool and take another shot at stepmotherhood. Carolyn, William's furious mother and a renowned Upper East Side OB/GYN, lives to nab Emelia for mistakes in handling him. Carolyn's indicting phone calls raise the already sky-high tension in Jack and Emelia's home, but they don't compare with Carolyn's announcement that, at age 42, she is pregnant. The news pushes Emelia to confess to Jack two things she shouldn't. William is charmingly realized, and Waldman (Daughter's Keeper) has upper bourgeois New York down cold. The result is a terrific adult story. (Feb. 21)"
"Love and Other Impossible Pursuits is a beautiful novel...If you are not
moved to tears, then your heart is carved from wood."
"I had a great time reading Love and Other Impossible Pursuits...The heroine
was a great accomplishment...and William (her stepson) is a triumph."
"I read this book in one sitting...Ayelet Waldman is that good."
"One of the sweetest and smartest and most poignant novels I've read in a
long time. It's also very funny."
|
||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||
| |||||||||
