Writers & Lovers
Fiction
2020
Grove Press
320
Purchased
Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.
Writers & Lovers follows Casey--a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist--in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King's trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.
My review:
I admit that I did not read this author's highly acclaimed novel Euphoria. For some reason the plot of that one didn't grab me like this one did. A book about a struggling writer choosing between two men in her life sounded pretty interesting. And it was! I really enjoyed the character of Casey, even though she made a lot of choices that maybe I would not have. I liked reading about her days. The trials and tribulations of working at a restaurant, trying to write despite having writer's block, her lingering grief over losing her mother, her estranged father, and the two men who enter her life forcing her to look closely at where she wants her life to go? Despite all that sounding like a depressing read, there were lots of uplifting moments to this novel. The two little boys of one of her lovers, the process of selling a manuscript, the sights and smells of her everyday existence, all of these combine to really immerse you into Casey's world. Despite most of her friends moving on to humdrum lives, Casey is clinging to her artistic side and hoping to break the mold. This novel is definitely more character driven than plot driven, and the writing is lovely, both things I gravitate toward when picking up a book. The ending was quite satisfying, not necessarily the way I might have chosen, but I'm not Casey, and was still rooting for her however her life played out.
I really enjoyed this literary fiction book about a down on her luck woman and her rise above the set pattern of her life. I may even go back and take another look at Euphoria 🙂
It is always interesting to see an author of an acclaimed novel follow that one up. I'm glad to read that this one is a hit too!