Under the Influence

 

Under the Influence by Joyce Maynard

Fiction

2016

Finished on August 11, 2025

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

When Helen meets Swift and Ava Havilland at an art gallery opening, her life is at an all-time low. A DUI conviction caused her to lose her driver's license and custody of her eight-year-old son, Oliver. Now she sees Ollie on Saturdays, but he hasn't forgiven his mother for messing up their life. She's got a dead-end job and goes on occasional dates, but spends most evenings at AA meetings. The Havillands change all that.

Ava and Swift are wealthy, charismatic philanthropists who fill their home with valuable art, unlikely friends, and over-the-top parties. The Havillands quickly become the center of Helen's world, as she takes on jobs for them and joins their glamorous inner circle. Then Helen meets Elliot--a quiet, uncool accountant the Havillands dismiss as boring. Helen might be falling in love with him, but her new best friends disapprove--and cause Helen to distrust her own heart.

Most compelling, for Helen, is what her friendship with the Havillands has meant to her relationship with her son. Ollie looks up to the larger-than-life man who treats him like a second son. And Swift has promised Helen the services of a high-powered attorney to help her regain custody. But when tragedy strikes, Helen and Ollie must pay for the generosity of Helen's new friends. Or pay dearly if they refuse.

Oh, Helen. Why didn't you trust your gut? Why were you so blind to how your so-called friends were treating you. The writing was right there on the wall, but you chose to ignore the red flags. Sigh.

Under the Influence is the proverbial train wreck. I could see where Maynard was leading her readers, and I distrusted Ava and Swift from the get-go, but I couldn't stop reading despite my impatience with the sluggish plotting. Thankfully, it's a quick read, and somewhat satisfying, but the heavy foreshadowing dragged on far too long before the finale. Unlikeable characters in an unrealistic situation. This is one to borrow from the library. 

How the Light Gets In (3.5/5)

The Bird Hotel (4.5/5)

Count the Ways (5/5)

After Her (4/5)

Where Love Goes (4/5)

Labor Day (4.5/5)

The Usual Rules (5/5)

How the Light Gets In

 

How the Light Gets In by Joyce Maynard

Fiction

2024

Finished on July 7, 2025

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

From New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard comes the eagerly anticipated follow-up to her beloved novel Count the Ways —a complex story of three generations of a family and its remarkable, resilient, indomitable matriarch, Eleanor. 

**** Spoiler Alert - Do not read if you haven't read Count the Ways ****

Following the death of her former husband, Cam, fifty-seven-year-old Eleanor resides on the New Hampshire farm where they raised three children to care for their brain-injured son, Toby, now an adult. Toby’s older brother, Al, is married and living in Seattle with his wife; their sister, Ursula, lives in Vermont with her husband and two children. Although all appears stable, old resentments, anger, and bitterness simmer just beneath the surface. 

**** End of Spoiler ****

How the Light Gets In follows Eleanor and her family through fifteen years (2009 to 2024) as their story plays out against a uniquely American backdrop and the events that transform their world (climate change, the January 6th insurrection, school violence) and shape their lives (later-life love, parental alienation, steadfast friendship). With her trademark sensitivity and insight, Joyce Maynard paints an indelible portrait of characters both familiar and new making their way over rough, messy, and treacherous terrain to find their way to what is, for each, a place to call home.

I was really looking forward to reading How the Light Gets In, but sadly it didn't live up to my high expectations. Joyce Maynard's earlier novel, Count the Ways, made my 2023 Top Ten list and I was eager to revisit the follow-up story of Eleanor and her family. Since it had been over a year since I read the previous novel, I decided to give the final chapters in that book a quick re-read. I shouldn't have bothered. Maynard spends an excessive amount of time providing backstory details, not just in the opening chapters, but throughout the entire book. At 422 pages in length, I felt the novel could have used more editing to cut through the repetitious detail of past and present details of Eleanor's life. The first half of the story lacks tension, which made it difficult for me to immerse myself in the book. The references to historical events that I enjoyed reading about in Count the Ways were overdone here, as if Maynard had a checklist to complete, dropping incidents such as the Sandy Hook school shooting, the disappointing election in 2016, Covid and the negativity toward vaccines and Dr. Fauci, John Prine's death, as well as George Floyd's murder. I also felt the sudden mending of one relationship a bit far-fetched after so many years of estrangement. With all of these quibbles, it's a wonder I finished the book, but the second half was a little fresher with enough to keep me interested. And the musical references (Kris Kristofferson's Help Me Make It Through the Night, Warren Zevon's Keep Me In Your Heart, and John Prine's When I Get to Heaven) are always a treat when encountered in a novel. While this may be my least favorite of Joyce Maynard's, I've certainly read a lot of winners by her. Click on any of the links below to read my reviews:

The Bird Hotel (4.5/5)

Count the Ways (5/5)

After Her (4/5)

Where Love Goes (4/5)

Labor Day (4.5/5)

The Usual Rules (5/5)

The Bird Hotel

 

The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard

Fiction

2023

Finished on July 28, 2024

Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

After a childhood filled with heartbreak, Irene, a talented artist, finds herself in a small Central American village where she checks into a beautiful but decaying lakefront hotel called La Llorona at the base of a volcano.

The Bird Hotel tells the story of this young American who, after suffering tragedy, restores and runs La Llorona. Along the way we meet a rich assortment of characters who live in the village or come to stay at the hotel. With a mystery at its center and filled with warmth, drama, romance, humor, pop culture, and a little magic realism, The Bird Hotel has all the hallmarks of a Joyce Maynard novel that have made her a a leading voice of her generation.

The Bird Hotel is a big, sweeping story spanning four decades, offering lyricism as well as whimsy. While the world New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard brings to life on the page is rendered from her imagination, it’s one informed by the more than twenty years of which she has spent a significant amount of her time in a small Mayan indigenous village in Guatemala.

I have yet to be disappointed by a novel written by Joyce Maynard. Last year I read Count the Ways, which made my Best of 2023 list, and I've just finished another gem, which is bound to be on my 2024 list. If I manage to get a copy of How the Light Gets In (Maynard's new release and sequel to Count the Ways), I may wind up with two of her books on that list.

The Bird Hotel is hefty novel, but the chapters are short, giving one a sense of reading a chronological collection of vignettes. This format made it easy to read in fits & spurts, which made it a perfect read during a visit from relatives, but it wasn't until Irene found her way to La Llorona, that I became invested in her story. The cast of characters came and went as the years passed, but Maynard draws each so vividly that I was able to imagine them (and the lush setting) without any trouble.

We could have taken ‘tuk tuk’ into the village, but Jerome suggested we walk. It was the time of day I loved best, when the sun was sinking behind the volcano in the sky, changing color every few seconds— rose color, giving way to peach, giving away to violet, golden glow on the hillside, and birds swooping low over the water.

There are a few unexpected events that take place in the final quarter of the book that held me so captivated, I sped through the last section without glancing up. Had it not been for the sluggish start, this would have been a perfect 5-star read. I was never tempted to give up on the book, but I'm glad it grew on me the further I read. 

“Nothing stays the same forever. . . Not gardens, or love affairs. Not joy, or sorrow either. Animals die. Children grow up. The thing you have to learn is to accept the changes when they come. Welcome them if you can. See what they bring into your life that wasn't there before.”

Now that I've read The Bird Hotel, and have a sense of the richly drawn setting, I prefer this cover art to that of the one I read.

Are you a Joyce Maynard fan? Click here to see more of what I've read and loved by this talented author. Maybe this will be the year I finally make time to re-read The Usual Rules.

Count the Ways

 

Count the Ways by Joyce Maynard

Fiction

2021 William Morrow

Finished on November 17, 2023

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

Publisher's Blurb:

In her most ambitious novel to date, New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard returns to the themes that are the hallmarks of her most acclaimed work in a mesmerizing story of a family—from the hopeful early days of young marriage to parenthood, divorce, and the costly aftermath that ripples through all their lives.

Eleanor and Cam meet at a crafts fair in Vermont in the early 1970s. She’s an artist and writer, he makes wooden bowls. Within four years they are parents to three children, two daughters and a red-headed son who fills his pockets with rocks, plays the violin and talks to God. To Eleanor, their New Hampshire farm provides everything she always wanted—summer nights watching Cam’s softball games, snow days by the fire and the annual tradition of making paper boats and cork people to launch in the brook every spring. If Eleanor and Cam don’t make love as often as they used to, they have something that matters more. Their family.

Then comes a terrible accident, caused by Cam’s negligence. Unable to forgive him, Eleanor is consumed by bitterness, losing herself in her life as a mother, while Cam finds solace with a new young partner.

Over the decades that follow, the five members of this fractured family make surprising discoveries and decisions that occasionally bring them together, and often tear them apart. Tracing the course of their lives—through the gender transition of one child and another’s choice to completely break with her mother—Joyce Maynard captures a family forced to confront essential, painful truths of its past, and find redemption in its darkest hours.

A story of holding on and learning to let go, Count the Ways is an achingly beautiful, poignant, and deeply compassionate novel of home, parenthood, love, and forgiveness.

Oh, this was a hard one to read. As one who has experienced divorce (both as a child and as an adult with a young child), this novel hit far too close to home. It would be so easy to compare my life story with that of Eleanor's, but this platform is not intended for oversharing personal grievances or dredging up the past. Suffice it to say, Eleanor and I have much in common and my heart ached for her. Count the Ways is the proverbial train-wreck of a novel, and while heartbreaking to this reader, I couldn't pull my eyes away. I so wanted her to find happiness and bury the all-consuming bitterness (toward her ex-husband) that poisoned her relationships with her daughters. 

Joyce Maynard's attention to domestic detail is strong (some may say too strong or excessive) in all of her books, and I especially enjoyed and appreciated the historical and pop references in this latest work. A playlist from the book would include Joni Mitchell, CSN, the Stones, and Beatles, to name just a few. Maynard draws her audience into the home and heart of a woman who wants only to love and be loved by her family. As I read, I had to remind myself that Eleanor is a character in a story and not a real person who needs to be comforted and told that it does get better. 

I've been reading the works of Joyce Maynard since the late 1980s when I first discovered her weekly syndicated column, Domestic Pleasures. Since then, I have read six of her novels, and up until now, my all-time favorite was The Usual Rules; Count the Ways has taken that honor. Highly recommend.

After Her

After Her by Joyce Maynard
Fiction
2013 William Morrow
Finished on September 26, 2019
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

The New York Times bestselling author of Labor Day and The Good Daughters returns with a warm and haunting novel of sisterhood, adolescence, sacrifice, and suspense

It's the summer of 1979, and a dry, hot, northern California school vacation stretches ahead for Rachel and her younger sister Patty-the daughters of a larger-than-life, irresistibly handsome and chronically unfaithful detective father who loves to make women happy, and the mother whose heart he broke.

Left to their own devices, the inseparable sisters spend their days studying record jackets, concocting elaborate fantasies about the life of the mysterious neighbor who moves in down the street, and playing dangerous games on the mountain that rises up behind their house.

When young women start showing up dead on the mountain, the girls' father is charged with finding the man responsible, known as The Sunset Strangler. Seeing her father's life slowly unravel when he fails to stop the murders, Rachel embarks on her most dangerous game yet: setting herself up as bait to catch the killer, with consequences that will destroy her father's career and alter the lives of everyone she loves.

It is not until thirty years later that Rachel, who has never given up hope of vindicating her father, finally smokes out the killer, bringing her back to the territory of her childhood, and uncovering a long-buried family secret.

As with her novel Labor Day, Maynard's newest work is part thriller, part love story. Loosely inspired by the Trailside Killer case that terrorized Marin County in the late seventies, her tale delves deep into the alternately thrilling and terrifying landscape of a young girl's first explorations of adult sexuality and the loss of innocence, the bond between sisters - and into a daughter's tender but damaged relationship with her father, and what it is to finally trust a man.

I've had an ARC of this book on my shelf for six years and decided to add it to my stack of books for our road trip since I've know any book by Joyce Maynard is sure to be a winner. As with her previous novels (reviewed here), I was immediately drawn into the story, the opening chapters reading like a memoir, which is one of my favorite genres. As I read, I began to wonder if this story was loosely based on fact (the publisher's blurb on the ARC is not as detailed as that on the hardcover edition posted above) and learned in the book's acknowledgments that certain details were indeed based on a true story.

I enjoyed the mystery aspect of this coming-of-age novel, but felt that the ending fell short, with somewhat unrealistic dialogue between the main character and the killer. With that said, it's still a solid read, and one which can be read in just a few short days. I, however, took much longer as I was preoccupied with my daughter's wedding, as well as a two-month long road trip.

Looking Back - Where Love Goes

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Where Love Goes by Joyce Maynard
Fiction
1993 Vintage
Finished on November 20, 1996
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

From the author of To Die For comes this poignant, stirring, and occasionally hilarious story of a woman's attempt to remake her life after a searing divorce. Maynard's novel captures love as one approaches middle age in contemporary America.

My Original Notes (1996):

Very good, but depressing! I wonder how much of the details are autobiographical. I read Joyce Maynard's newsletter and a lot of what she's written (about her family and her divorce) sounds familiar in the plot of this book. I couldn't put the book down!

"A splendid, heartfelt novel... real enough to live in." ~ Pat Conroy

I could relate to a lot of what Maynard described, with regard to divorce and blended families.


My Current Thoughts:

I've written about Joyce Maynard here and here and loved both of those novels even more than this one. I still have an ARC of After Her on my TBR shelf and hope to get to it in the coming year or so. I no longer have a copy of Where Love Goes, but in spite of enjoying it so well in 1996, I doubt I'd read it again. Reading about divorce and step-parenting isn't high on my list at this point in my life. The book probably validated a lot of my own feelings 20 years ago, but I don't feel the need to seek out affirmation of those feelings or attitudes any longer.

Labor Day

Labor Day by Joyce Maynard
Fiction
2009 William Morrow
Finished on 9/11/09
Rating: 4.5/5 (Terrific!)




Product Description

With the end of summer closing in and a steamy Labor Day weekend looming in the town of Holton Mills, New Hampshire, thirteen-year-old Henry—lonely, friendless, not too good at sports—spends most of his time watching television, reading, and daydreaming about the soft skin and budding bodies of his female classmates. For company Henry has his long-divorced mother, Adele—a onetime dancer whose summer project was to teach him how to foxtrot; his hamster, Joe; and awkward Saturday-night outings to Friendly's with his estranged father and new stepfamily. As much as he tries, Henry knows that even with his jokes and his "Husband for a Day" coupon, he still can't make his emotionally fragile mother happy. Adele has a secret that makes it hard for her to leave their house, and seems to possess an irreparably broken heart.

But all that changes on the Thursday before Labor Day, when a mysterious bleeding man named Frank approaches Henry and asks for a hand. Over the next five days, Henry will learn some of life's most valuable lessons: how to throw a baseball, the secret to perfect pie crust, the breathless pain of jealousy, the power of betrayal, and the importance of putting others—especially those we love—above ourselves. And the knowledge that real love is worth waiting for.

In a manner evoking Ian McEwan's Atonement and Nick Hornby's About a Boy, acclaimed author Joyce Maynard weaves a beautiful, poignant tale of love, sex, adolescence, and devastating treachery as seen through the eyes of a young teenage boy—and the man he later becomes—looking back at an unexpected encounter that begins one single long, hot, life-altering weekend.

I sure don't hear much about Joyce Maynard in the blogging world. When I mention her name to customers at work, I get a blank look. I add that I used to love reading her weekly parenting column every Saturday morning (I think she shared the same page as Dave Barry in the San Diego Union back in the late '80s), and that blank look intensifies. When I mention To Die For (one of her earlier novels), it's only when I add the tidbit about the film adaptation (starring Nicole Kidman and Matt Damon) that I finally get a flicker of recognition. And when I mention her coming-of-age novel, The Usual Rules, I might only find a couple of people who have actually heard of it. What a shame that such a talented author has slipped under so many readers' radars.

Like The Usual Rules (an incredibly honest and touching story about a young girl's loss as a result of the tragic events of 9/11), Labor Day is also a coming-of-age story with themes of forgiveness, trust, unconditional love and friendship. It is not an action-packed story, but rather one of great character development, reminiscent of Plainsong (Kent Haruf) and An Unfinished Life (Mark Spragg). The spare realism draws the reader in to the lives of the characters, not letting go, holding on for days (weeks even) after finishing the last line.

I rarely gush about a book, but I really loved this story! It's been three weeks since I finished and I'm still thinking about the characters. And the peach pie. I may have to reread that segment and try my hand at that crust.

The Usual Rules made my Top Ten list in 2005 and I am fairly certain that Labor Day will make this year's list. Don't miss this compelling novel and author. Beautiful prose and unforgettable characters. You just can't go wrong.

Go here to read my review of The Usual Rules.

The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog

The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog by Dave Barry
Fiction – Holiday
Finished on 12/30/06
Rating: C (3/10 Ho-hum)





Like most couples, Rod & I enjoy reading the morning newspaper while savoring a good cup of coffee. When we were first married, part of our Sunday morning routine was to read aloud the funny bits & pieces from Dave Barry and Joyce Maynard’s columns. Barry generally wrote about all aspects of life: dogs, employers, fear of flying, and swimming in shark-infested waters, to name just a few. In her syndicated column, Domestic Affairs, Maynard focused more on her personal life as a mother of three young children. While I enjoyed parts of Barry’s column, I identified more with Maynard, particularly her anecdotes about sharing custody with her ex-husband.

Over the years, Rod’s accumulated dozens of Dave Barry’s books and up until now, I’ve never felt any compelling reason to read any of them. So it didn’t surprise me in the least when I finished The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog and thought, “Meh. Cute, but nothing fabulous.” I also couldn’t help but feel thankful that it only took an hour or so to read. I may not have stuck with a longer story.

The Usual Rules

Note: This review appeared in my monthly newsletter (March 2005). Apologies to those who have already read it.



The Usual Rules by Joyce Maynard
Contemporary Fiction
Rating: A+ (5/5 Excellent!)
Top Ten List for 2005




I'm just barely too young to answer the question, "Where were you when JFK was assassinated?" yet I will never forget September 11, 2001 and where I was for as long as I live. Having lived through that terrible day, how could I possibly read a novel that deals with the 9/11 tragedy as seen through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old? Nothing prepared me for the grief and overwhelming sadness in the book, yet I appreciated and admired the work ("enjoy" or "loved" aren't the right words to express my reaction -- how can a novel in which the first 130 pages deals with the raw emotions of 9/11 be something I loved?). Yet, how was it possible that I could not put this book down in spite of its horrific subject matter? Actually, I did have to put it down a couple of times. The writing was so convincing that I found myself re-living that awful day and didn't want to go to sleep feeling so horribly sad. Yet this is so much more than a story about a family who loses a loved one in the tragedy of that day. It's a remarkable coming-of-age story in which Joyce Maynard captures the voice of a strong, young girl trying to put her life back together.

You could say I cut my parenting teeth on Maynard's column (Domestic Pleasures) back in the late 1980s. She's one of those writers I've followed, both in her personal life (used to subscribe to her printed newsletters and now occasionally check out her website) and her novels. While The Usual Rules is a work of fiction, I recognized bits and pieces of her own children in the characters of Wendy and Louie. Louie is a precocious 4-year-old and I could almost get angry at Maynard for using him to tug so hard at my heartstrings.

I found myself marking dozens of pages in The Usual Rules, the voices of each character ringing true. As sad and difficult (at times) as it was to read, this is one of the best books I've read in a long time. It moved me and made me think and made me appreciate my family and life. It will certainly wind up in my Top Ten for 2005. No doubt about it.

Some of my favorite passages:

Wendy was stunned. She didn't know that anything she read in a book could hurt so much. She reread the words, in case she'd got them wrong. It was as if someone she actually knew had died and, just as she would for someone she had known, she felt herself begin to cry.

How can it be, Wendy asked Alan, that you'll be reading this story that's so sad, it almost hurts to look at the words on the page? What happens to the characters practically tears your stomach out - and then the book is over. And the first thing you want to do is find another book like that.

Does God know about this? Louie asked. In the context of the page, this really made me choke up!

Sometimes it was a flash flood. Other times it came on like a slow-building rainstorm, the kind that gives you enough warning you might even have time to get inside before the clouds burst. Once it started, though, there was nothing to do but let the sorrow pound you like the most powerful current, the strongest waterfall. When the sorrow hit, small losses came crashing over you in one suffocating torrent.

Somewhere in the pile under the shards of melted computers and telephones and file cabinets and computer discs and air conditioners and intercom systems and water coolers and Xerox machines and red sandals and every other color sandals and every other kind of shoes, under the shredded remains of business suits and briefcases and raincoats and car keys, gym bags and diaper bags and bag lunches and half-finished books, business cards and charge cards and postcards and anniversary cards and maybe somewhere even a love letter, or one word from one, or maybe just a question mark, some where beneath a million other pieces of paper and metal and plastic and - her brain would settle on this image whether she wanted to or not - pieces of bone, too, flesh and bone, somewhere in there was a scrap of a scrap of a photograph of her own self, under the Christmas tree, smiling, with her baby brother in her arms. I really like the cadence of this passage.

In September, everything she loved - songs on the radio and clothes and flavors of ice cream and types of dogs, leaf piles and roller coasters and skating, and Japanese animation movies and sushi and shopping and the clarinet and splashing in the waves at Nantucket with her brother - had melted away, not gone maybe, but this was almost worse: still there, but robbed of any capacity to give pleasure, like a soup with so many ingredients that, in the end, it tastes of nothing, like what happens when you mix all the wonderful colors of paint and it turns out that together what they add up to is brown. Again, lovely cadence.

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