Every Last One

Every Last One by Anna Quindlen
Fiction
2010 Random House
Finished on 4/4/10
Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding)
ARC - On sale April 13, 2010
FTC Disclosure: Received ARC from publisher


Publisher's Blurb:

In this breathtaking and beautiful novel, #1 New York Times bestselling author Anna Quindlen creates an unforgettable portrait of a mother, a father, a family, and the explosive, violent consequences of what seem like inconsequential actions.

Mary Beth Latham is first and foremost a mother whose three teenage children come first, before her career as a landscape gardener or even her life as the wife of a doctor. Caring for her family and preserving their everyday life is paramount. [Spoiler Removed] [...] a testament to the power of a woman's love and determination and to the invisible line of hope and healing that connects one human being to another.

Ultimately, as rendered in Anaa Quindlen's mesmerizing prose, Every Last One is a novel about facing every last one of the things we fear most, about finding ways to navigate a road we never intended to travel, about living a life we never dreamed we'd have to live but must be brave enough to try.

I love Anna Quindlen's books. I've read her short essays (Being Perfect, Loud and Clear) and most of her novels (Object Lessons, One True Thing, Black and Blue, Blessings) and was thrilled to receive an ARC of her latest book. Quindlen has such a way with words, describing the most mundane and ordinary events of daily life in ways that make these things seem not only interesting, but important and compelling. I always find myself feeling as though she's observed my own life or has eavesdropped on conversations between me and my friends or my husband. Somehow she seems to have her finger on the sometimes erratic pulse of family relationships, and I believe Every Last One is her best effort yet.

As much as I love Quindlen's writing, I've really struggled with this particular review. It is nearly impossible to explain why this book affected me as it did without giving away any spoilers. And yet, I need to say that this novel blew me away like none other I've read. I rarely stay up late reading, but I had come down with a terrible cold and was having a tough time falling asleep, so I grabbed this book and headed down to the couch, fully expecting to fall asleep after 30 minutes or so. Nope. I stayed up until close to 3 a.m., completely swept away by Quindlen's amazing story.

It's a story about a family and the sort of tragedy that one might think "could only happen to other people." The sort of horrific tale that one might hear about on CNN. And as Kate Medina (Random House's executive vice president) states in her letter to the readers of this ARC, I, too, was just "as shocked as Mary Beth is when her carefully managed life explodes."

I didn't just get a lump in my throat or a tear in my eye. I cried as if the members of the Latham family were people I knew personally. It felt as though Quindlen had peeked inside my heart; her descriptions of Mary Beth's shock and disbelief centered around the incident are spot on.

Quindlen's characters are so completely realized and the dialogue so believable, you'll wonder if this is really a work of fiction.

I love the simple details of a familiar life as a wife and mother:

This is my life: The alarm goes off at five-thirty with the murmuring of a public-raadio announcer, telling me that there has been a coup in Chad, a tornado in Texas. My husband stirs briefly next to me, turns over, blinks, and falls back to sleep for another hour. My robe lies at the foot of the bed, printed cotton in the summer, tufted chenille for the cold. The coffeemaker comes on in the kitchen below as I leave the bathroom, go downstairs in bare feet, pause to put away a pair of boots left splayed in the downstairs back hallway and to lift the newspaper from the back step. The umber quarry tiles in the kitchen were a bad choice; they are always cold. I let the dog out of her kennel and put a cup of kibble in her bowl. I hate the early mornings, the suspended animation of the world outside, the veil of black and then the oppressive gray of the horizon along the hills outside the French doors. But it is the only time I can rest without sleeping, think without deciding, speak and hear my own voice. It is the only time I can be alone. Slightly less than an hour each weekday when no one makes demands.

and I love Quindlen's description of spring weather:

Laundry is my life, and meals, and school meetings and games and recitals. I choose a cardigan sweater and put it on the chest at the foot of the bed. It is late April, nominally spring, but the weather is as wild as an adolescent mood, sun into clouds into showers into storms into sun again.

The authenticity of Quindlen's take on motherhood, on family, and on love and loss, is incredibly affecting. You cannot read Quindlen without feeling as though she has peeked into your life—or possibly that you've been allowed to peek into hers.


I have no excuse for my own tears. In the way of women my age, I increasingly count my blessings aloud, as though if other people acknowledge them they'll be enough; three wonderful children, a long and happy marriage, good home, pleasurable work. And if below the surface I sense that one child is poised to flee and another is miserable, that my husband and I trade public pleasantries and private minutiae, that my work depends on the labor of men who think I'm cheating them—none of that is to be dwelled on. Besides, none of that has anything to do with my tears. If I were pressed, I would have to say that they are the symptom of some great loneliness, as free-floating and untethered to everyday life as a tornado is to the usual weather. It whirls through, ripping and tearing, and then I'm in the parking lot of the supermarket, wiping my eyes, replacing my sunglasses, buying fish and greens for that night's dinner. If anyone asks how things are, I say what we all say: fine, good, great, terrific, wonderful.

SPOILERS AHEAD:



On grieving:

I have two selves now, too, the one that goes out in the world and says what sounds like the right things and nods and listens and sometimes smiles, and the real woman, who watches her in wonder, who is nothing but a wound, a wound that will not stop throbbing except when it is anesthetized. I know what the world wants: It wants me to heal. But to heal I would have to forget, and if I forget my family truly dies.

and

Here is one of the worst things about having someone you love die: It happens again every single morning. The soft web of sleep begins to clear and then, in an instant, your mind asks and answers a dreadful question.

and

I don't know what to do, or what to do next. The memorial service, the will, the insurance: No one tells you what to do after, when things are supposed to go back to normal. I suppose what comes next is pretend-normal. I feel exhausted thinking about it.

and

"Thank you for everything, Mom. You've been a rock through all of this."

I've taken her by surprise, and she looks down. Finally she says, "I have a great admiration for how you've handled yourself, Mary Beth. You've been very strong."

"Did I have a choice?"

"That's not the point. Lots of people would have fallen apart in this situation." I wonder how falling apart would feel different from this. I can't believe it would be worse.

END OF SPOILERS

Anna Quindlen's authentic voice and compelling narrative create a beautifully rendered story of one family's tragedy, a tragedy that none of us is ever prepared to face. I simply could not put this book down; I read it in less than two days. And now, one week later, I find myself thinking about the characters and all they endured.

Highly recommend!

Loud and Clear

Loud and Clear by Anna Quindlen
Nonfiction - Essays
Finished on 8/27/07
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)
Nonfiction Challenge #4



In her first retrospective essay collection since Thinking Out Loud (1993), best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Quindlen continues to unscramble gnarly social issues with splendid clarity and pithiness, wit and compassion and uncommon common sense.... So true is Quindlen's moral compass, and so lucid, vital, and forward-looking are her insights, that her opinion pieces not only stand the test of time but also provide an invaluable gage of where we've been and where we're going....Quindlen is a tonic for mind and soul.
-Booklist

Quindlen . . . couldn't have picked a more apt title . . . Whether readers agree with Quindlen's opinions on everything from youth culture to gun control, these razor-sharp musings will open avenues of debate and discussion long after the book is closed. Quindlen is at the top of her game . . .
-Publishers Weekly

Fiction has always been my first choice in books. However, in recent years I've been reading quite a bit of nonfiction, specifically memoirs and collections of essays. I'm especially fond of those in which cooking, gardening, family and home are the primary material source. Anna Quindlen is both novelist and columnist (formerly for the New York Times and currently for Newsweek) and I've read most of her published works, so I was thrilled to receive this book from a dear friend last Christmas. It's the perfect sort of book to pick up and read a few essays here and there. (Or, what another friend refers to as reading in "sips and gulps.")

Quindlen divides the book into five categories: Heart (16), Mind (19), Body (12), Voice (4) and Soul (18) for a total of 69 essays. Perhaps the most moving of all, though, is the Preface in which she speaks about September 11, 2001.

I knew that something uniquely terrible was taking place. I also had reason to believe that everyone I cared for was safe: My husband across the Hudson at his office. The children at their schools. My friend in the hospital across town. It was difficult for us to talk to one another, of course, with the New York City telephone lines out, the tunnels and bridges shut down, and cyberspace hopelessly jammed. One of the mementos I have kept from that morning are three identical e-mails from our son at college, who could not get through on the date of his birthday or for three days afterward. Each one is dated September 11, 2001, and says in capital letters I REALLY NEED TO HEAR YOUR VOICE.

and

Most nights, housebreaking the puppy we had picked up the day after our son left for school, I would run into a fireman who was heading home after working the wreckage, his eyes burning bright in a grimy face, his hands nicked and bandaged. He would pet our dog, rub her ears and muzzle, finally crouch to hold her squirmy little body close, and by the time he rose for the rest of the walk home there would be bright tear tracks in the dirt on his face. I tried not to cry until he was gone.

There are so many wonderful essays in this collective work; I've dog-eared dozens of pages, the majority of which can be found in the Soul section. Essays such as "Life After Death" which deals with grief:

Grief remains one of the few things that has the power to silence us. It is a whisper in the world and a clamor within. More than sex, more than faith, even more than its usher death, grief is unspoken, publicly ignored except for those moments at the funeral that are over too quickly, or the conversations among the cognoscenti, those of us who recognize in one another a kindred chasm deep in the center of who we are.

Maybe we do not speak of it because death will mark all of us, sooner or later. Or maybe it is unspoken because grief is only the first part of it. After a time it becomes something less sharp but larger, too, a more enduring thing called loss.

Perhaps that is why this is the least explored passage: because it has no end. The world loves closure, loves a thing that can, as they say, be gotten through. This is why it comes as a great surprise to find that loss is forever, that two decades after the event there are those occasions when something in you cries out at the continuous presence of an absence, "An awful leisure," Emily Dickinson once called what the living have after death.

Then there's "Anniversary" in which she writes about the loss of a mother, also quite powerful and thought-provoking.

In "Weren't We All So Young Then?" Quindlen returns to the topic of 9/11:

People are changed forever by grief, and changed people change the way the world is, the kind of place it becomes. Getting on with life is not the same as getting over a loss.

I especially liked the following quote from "Leg Waxing and Life Everlasting":

The youth produced by scalpel and laser is of a particularly arid sort, as much like the bloom of the real thing as the decor of those funeral homes is like a real live living room. But if the abs are tight, the eyes unlined, the hands unspotted, the hairline intact, if fifty-five is the new forty, then can't the inevitable be, if not avoided, at least indefinitely deferred? The answer is, of course, no. As Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was said to have told a friend when she became ill, "Why in the world did I do all those push-ups?"

"Watching the World Go By" (an essay about reality tv) provides humor with lines such as:

People named Kimmi and Colby and Amber (who chooses the participants, the writers for One Life to Live?) balancing on rafts, living on goat brains, turning brown in the outback? This is a stunt, not survival.

And then, of course, the column about Harry Potter and readership in America ("Aha! Caught You Reading"):

The next time someone talks about the narrow interests of kids today, how they attend only to the raucous cry of the computer calling across a stretch of cable to its mate the Internet, remember this week. Remember how the boys and girls of America went gaga over a book, a real old-fashioned black-letters-on-white-paper book, how they waited in line for it at the mall, cradled it to their bony little chests and carried it into their bedrooms, slipped into its imaginary world with big eyes and open minds as children have done almost since Gutenberg put the pedal to the metal of the printing press.

There's so much more to this particular essay, but I hate to spoil it for those of you who wish to read the book yourself. Most of the essays are between three to four pages in length, which does pose a problem when trying to share favorite passages. Taken out of context, they have a tendency to lose their significance and power. So, buy the book. Read an essay or two every few days. Don't do what I did and read it like a novel. These need to be savored slowly. And don't forget your highlighter!

Note: Archival copies of Anna Quindlen's Newsweek column, "The Last Word," can be found here. If you enjoy her writing and have read through all 77 essays, you can set up a Google Alert for future columns.

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen
Memoir
2012 Random House
Finished on December 7, 2016
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

In this irresistible memoir, the New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen writes about looking back and ahead—and celebrating it all—as she considers marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, faith, loss, all the stuff in our closets, and more.

As she did in her beloved New York Times columns, and in A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Quindlen says for us here what we may wish we could have said ourselves. Using her past, present, and future to explore what matters most to women at different ages, Quindlen talks about

Marriage: “A safety net of small white lies can be the bedrock of a successful marriage. You wouldn’t believe how cheaply I can do a kitchen renovation.”

Girlfriends: “Ask any woman how she makes it through the day, and she may mention her calendar, her to-do lists, her babysitter. But if you push her on how she really makes it through her day, she will mention her girlfriends. Sometimes I will see a photo of an actress in an unflattering dress or a blouse too young for her or with a heavy-handed makeup job, and I mutter, ‘She must not have any girlfriends.’ ”

Stuff: “Here’s what it comes down to, really: there is now so much stuff in my head, so many years, so many memories, that it’s taken the place of primacy away from the things in the bedrooms, on the porch. My doctor says that, contrary to conventional wisdom, she doesn’t believe our memories flag because of a drop in estrogen but because of how crowded it is in the drawers of our minds. Between the stuff at work and the stuff at home, the appointments and the news and the gossip and the rest, the past and the present and the plans for the future, the filing cabinets in our heads are not only full, they’re overflowing.”

Our bodies: “I’ve finally recognized my body for what it is: a personality-delivery system, designed expressly to carry my character from place to place, now and in the years to come. It’s like a car, and while I like a red convertible or even a Bentley as well as the next person, what I really need are four tires and an engine.”

Parenting: “Being a parent is not transactional. We do not get what we give. It is the ultimate pay-it-forward endeavor: We are good parents not so they will be loving enough to stay with us but so they will be strong enough to leave us.”

From childhood memories to manic motherhood to middle age, Quindlen uses the events of her own life to illuminate our own. Along with the downsides of age, she says, can come wisdom, a perspective on life that makes it satisfying and even joyful. Candid, funny, moving, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake is filled with the sharp insights and revealing observations that have long confirmed Quindlen’s status as America’s laureate of real life.

I knew this memoir was going to be good when I reached for my Post-It flags before I finished the first page. Some of the chapters weren't as interesting to me and my interest waned, but then toward the end of the book, I regained enthusiasm and once again reached for my Post-It flags. This may be best to read a little here and there, rather than all at once. I think I'd like to live next door to Quindlen. I can see us walking around her pond, sipping tea or wine, solving the world's problems. :)

Some favorite passages:

"I feel like I'm not alone," some of those who wrote to me said, and that sentiment changed my life. That's what's so wonderful about reading, that books and poetry and essays make us feel as though we're connected, as though the thoughts and feelings we believe are singular and sometimes nutty are shared by others, that we are all more alike than different. 

On Aging:

Many of us have come to a surprising conclusion about this moment in our lives. No, it's not that there are weird freckly spots on the back of our hands, although there are, or that construction guys don't make smutty comments as we pass, although they don't. It's that we've done a pretty good job of becoming ourselves, and that this is, in so many ways, the time of our lives. As Carly Simon once sang, "These are the good old days." Lots of candles, plenty of cake. I wouldn't be twenty-five again on a bet, or even forty. And when I say this to a group of women at lunch, everyone around the table nods. Many of us find ourselves exhilarated, galvanized, at the very least older and wiser.

On Friends:

And in the end we wind up with the friends who really stick. Being female, we pride ourselves on doing for them, on listening to them complain or cry, on showing up with a cake or a casserole and taking charge when disaster strikes. But the measure of our real friends, our closest friends, is that we let them do the same for us. We've been taking charge for decades; to let go, to take help instead of charge, is the break point of friendship. And it comes to us, finally, when we are older and wiser, when we've got bigger things to think about than where to buy a coffee table or whether the new guy at work will be collegial. One of the most important parts of tending our friendships is working our ways, over time, into the kind of friendships that can support cataclysm, friendships that are able to move from the office or the playground to hospital rooms and funerals. Some of my married friends are widows now, and some are single, and some have lost parents and had kids who were lost to them for a while. And even those of us who so far have been relatively unscathed know how important the bonds of love are, how they make a net so we don't hit the ground when we fall from the wire. 

I have just spent the last half hour re-reading all the passages I marked (choosing not to share all of them) and they all are worthy of reflection and contemplation. This book is a keeper and one that I hope to return to in the coming years.

After Annie

 

After Annie by Anna Quindlen

Fiction

2024

Finished on July 13, 2024

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Quindlen’s trademark wisdom on family, emotions, and the secrets of people in a small town are at the center of this novel about triumph over adversity and the power of love to transcend time, by the best-selling author of Still Life with Breadcrumbs and One True Thing.

When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her four young children and her closest friend are left to struggle without the woman who centered their lives. Bill Brown finds himself overwhelmed, and Annie’s best friend Annemarie is lost to old bad habits without Annie’s support. It is Annie’s daughter, Ali, forced to try to care for her younger brothers and even her father, who manages to maintain some semblance of their former lives for them all, and who confronts the complicated truths of adulthood.

Yet over the course of the next year, while Annie looms large in their memories, all three are able to grow, to change, even to become stronger and more sure of themselves. The enduring power Annie gave to those who loved her is the power to love, and to go on without her.

Written in Quindlen’s emotionally resonant voice, and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is a story that ends with hope, a beautiful novel about how adversity can change us in profound ways.

We all have those favorite authors who write stories that reflect our own lives, and Anna Quindlen is high on my list. I've read all but two of her novels, and After Annie is classic Quindlen, full of real-life issues, addressing the tender emotions of grief from the vantage point of a husband, a young daughter, and a best friend. She doesn't shy away from the visceral anguish felt by Annie's family and her closest friend, drawing the reader into the center of the Brown home as they navigate the confusion and helplessness after Annie's sudden death. 

Grief was like spring, maybe. You thought you were getting out from under it and then it came roaring back. And getting out from under it felt like forgetting, and forgetting felt like treason. Sometimes when he reached in the closet for a shirt, a sleeve or two from her side would touch his arm, like it was reaching for him, and there would be a faint smell, lemon and hand cream and something else, maybe her shampoo.

My heart ached for Ali (Annie's thirteen-year-old daughter), but it was eleven-year-old Ant, whose anger turned to despair when he cried, "I want my mom." I have held a grieving child who said those exact words to me, and all I could do was hold her tighter. I didn't believe it at the time, but I can now agree with Ant's father as he held his son, telling him that it does get better. 

Every Last One continues to be my favorite work of Quindlen's, but After Annie comes very close to nudging that novel down a notch. I was captivated from the opening lines, finishing far more quickly than I wanted. 

Highly recommend.

Living Out Loud

Living Out Loud by Anna Quindlen

Nonfiction - Essays

1989 Ivy Books (first published in 1988)

Finished on November 5, 2021

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

The voice is Anna Quindlen’s. But we know the hopes, dreams, fears, and wonder expressed in all her columns, for most of us share them. With her New York Times-based column, “LIFE IN THE 30s,” Anna Quindlen valued to national attention, and this wonderful collection shows why.

I'm quite a fan of Anna Quindlen's works and have read all but one or two of her books. I've had a copy of this collection of syndicated columns for many, many years and the Nonfiction November challenge was just the nudge I needed to finally dip into it. Each essay is about three pages in length and I wound up reading dozens of the columns back-to-back. It might have been better to read one or two a night, but I was impatient to move on to another book, so I zipped through this one. While it's a fairly quick read, I didn't love the book.

Written for The New York Times in the late 80s, much of Quindlen's essays felt dated and not relevant to my current life. My 60th birthday is just around the corner and the author was in her 30s when she wrote her column. However, I'm not sure my 30-something-year-old daughter would find much that would resonate with her, either.

A couple of entries gave me pause and I found myself thinking that the more things change, the more they remain the same:

My husband and I are educated people, and I can't tell you what a whoop we got out of it when we heard the story--untrue, it developed--that Joe Biden would get back in the race, too. Was that silly or what? "Ted Kennedy's next!" we both shouted. "Nixon," I screamed. "Like the T-shirt says, he's tanned, rested, and ready." (Written after Gary Hart dropped out of the 1988 race for the presidential nomination.)

and

The problem is that we would love absolute certainty on all aspects of this issue. We are a nation raised on True or False tests. We want doctors to give us the answers, which shows how short our memories are. After all, it was the doctors who told us that smoking wouldn't kill you and amphetamines during pregnancy didn't do a bit of harm. We want to know precisely how this disease spreads and why some people who are exposed get it and some don't and whether being exposed means inevitably getting sick. First we hear that the biggest argument against transmission through casual contact is that health-care workers don't get it. Then we hear that health-care workers have gotten it. And we don't know what to believe. All we know for sure is that getting sick means dying, at least so far. (Not about COVID-19, but AIDs)

and

I still read constantly: if my kids ever go into analysis, I'm sure they will say they don't really remember my face because it was always hidden by a book. Obviously this is in part because I like books. But another reason is that I like to be alone. I like to go deep inside myself and not be accompanied there by anyone else. 

When I sat down to write this review, my first thought was that I don't care for Anna Quindlen's books of nonfiction. And yet, as I scrolled through my blog, I discovered that I gave three of those books high ratings. Loud & Clear was, coincidentally, one of my selections for the 2007 Nonfiction November challenge and I gave it a 4/5 rating. Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake and Nanaville also received 4/5 ratings and I shared several favorite passages in each of those reviews. The only remaining book of her essays that I have not yet read is Thinking Out Loud, which was published in 1993. I think I'll pass on that one and read Alternate Side (her latest novel) instead.

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.

Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen
Fiction
1999 Dell Publishing Company (first published in 1998)
Finished in April 1999
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

With this stunning novel about a woman and a marriage that begins in passion and becomes violent, the Pulitzer Prize--winning journalist and bestselling author of "One True Thing" and "Object Lessons" moves to a new dimension as a writer of superb fiction. "If literature were judged solely by its ability to elicit strong emotions, " Kirkus Reviews said about "One True Thing," "columnist-cum-novelist Quindlen would win another Pulitzer." And the same will be said about "Black and Blue," a brilliant novel of suspense, substance, and importance.

In "Black and Blue," Fran Benedetto tells a spellbinding story: how at 19 she fell in love with Bobby Benedetto, how their passionate marriage became a nightmare, why she stayed, and what happened on the night she finally decided to run away with her 10-year-old son and start a new life under a new name. Living in fear in Florida--yet with increasing confidence, freedom, and hope--Fran unravels the complex threads of family, identity, and desire that shape a woman's life, even as she begins to create a new one. As Fran starts to heal from the pain of the past, she almost believes she has escaped it--that Bobby Benedetto will not find her and again provoke the complex combustion between them of attraction and destruction, lust and love. "Black and Blue" is a beautifully written, heart-stopping story in which Anna Quindlen writes with power, wisdom, and humor about the real lives of men and women, the varieties of people and love, the bonds between mother and child, the solace of family and friendship, the inexplicable feelings between people who are passionately connected in ways they don't understand.


My Original Notes (1999):

If a book about spousal abuse can be good, this one was. Quindlen really put a face on the life of a battered woman without going into too many gory details. She focused more on the life after rather than the life during the abuse. She managed to make me understand why a woman would stay with her husband, in spite of the cruelty. I think the conclusion was a little too pat - too neat and tidy - but then again, I do like happy endings. And it was a perfect ending. I enjoy Quindlen's writing style and look forward to more of her books.

My Current Thoughts:

This may have been the second book of Quindlen's that I read in the late 90s. Little did I know she would become one of my favorite authors. I'm not sure I could reread this particular novel, though. 

Nanaville: Adventures in Grandparenting

Nanaville: Adventures in Grandparenting by Anna Quindlen
Nonfiction - Memoir
2019 Random House
Finished on April 24, 2019
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

A big-hearted book of wisdom, wit, and insight, celebrating the love and joy of being a grandmother, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist and #1 New York Times bestselling author.

It's a little challenging to suss out why exactly it can be so magical. . . . All I know is: The hand. The little hand that takes yours, small and soft as feathers. I'm happy our grandson does not yet have sophisticated language or a working knowledge of personal finance, because if he took my hand and said, "Nana, can you sign your 401(k) over to me," I can imagine myself thinking, well, I don't really need a retirement fund, do I? And besides, look at those eyelashes. Or the greeting. Sometimes Arthur sees me and yells "Nana!" in the way some people might say "ice cream!" and others say "shoe sale!" No one else has sounded that happy to see me in many, many years.

Before blogs even existed, Anna Quindlen became a go-to writer on the joys and challenges of family, motherhood, and modern life, in her nationally syndicated column. Now she's taking the next step and going full Nana in the pages of this lively, beautiful, and moving book about being a grandmother. Quindlen offers thoughtful and telling observations about her new role, no longer mother and decision-maker but secondary character and support to the parents of her grandson. She writes, "Where I once led, I have to learn to follow." Eventually a close friend provides words to live by: "Did they ask you?"

Candid, funny, frank, and illuminating, Quindlen's singular voice has never been sharper or warmer. With the same insights she brought to motherhood in Living Out Loud and to growing older in Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, this new nana uses her own experiences to illuminate those of many others.

Nanaville is another irresistible memoir (especially for new grandmothers) by one of my most favorite and prolific authors, Anna Quindlen. I was thrilled to learn that I had won an Advance Reader's Copy through Goodreads, but waited until we were on our three-week road trip before I started reading. I knew I would enjoy it, but wanted to wait until I had a big chunk of uninterrupted time before beginning. From the opening pages, I was hooked, reaching for my Post-It flags, nodding my head in agreement. While my desire to mark passages eventually waned, my interest never did.

On the Shifting Rules of Parenting:

He is also not supposed to be sleeping on his stomach. I cycled through prevailing medical opinion on sleep positions as a young mother. I was supposed to put the first on his stomach so that if he spit up he wouldn't aspirate it into his lungs. (I love it when you hear things like this. The doctor is saying very calmly, "Aspirate into his lungs" and you're nodding and thinking, Aspirate? Into his lungs?) Number two was supposed to be on his side. Have you ever tried to get a baby to sleep on his side? The package is not designed that way. By the third there was some debate, side or back. It seemed someone, somewhere, had decided the lung-aspiration danger no longer applied. I settled the matter with my youngest by choosing the position in which she was most likely to settle down. I had three children under the age of five. Pragmatism was my middle name. If she wanted to sleep upside down like a bat, I would have put a bar on the ceiling above the crib. Whatever gets you through the night.

and a few more favorite passages:

Sunlight spreads across the checkerboard tiles in the kitchen, and so do many other things: wooden spoons, a rubber frog, Tupperware, a couple of puzzle pieces, some plastic letters, elements of the obstacle course of the active toddler. Did you know that the wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the town? They do, over and over again, sung by the robotic voice of some plastic magnetic thing on the refrigerator. Oh, and Old MacDonald has a farm. The hokey pokey? That's what it's all about.

This soundtrack, I know, will continue into perpetuity, first the nursery song, then the pop song, the rock song, the earworms of motherhood that emanate from the toy radio, the computer, from behind a closed bedroom door with a placard that says PLEASE KNOCK. I have been here before. Sort of.

and

It's a complicated relationship, being a good grandparent, because it hinges on a series of other relationships. It's an odd combination of being very experienced and totally green: I know how to raise a child, but I need to learn how to help my child raise his own. Where I once commanded, now I need to ask permission. Where I once led, I have to learn to follow. For years I had strong opinions for a living. Now I need to wait until I am asked for them, and modulate them most of the time. Probably I overreact.

and

...I'm learning that being a grandmother is not about the things you have to do. It's about the things you want to do. The fact is that motherhood is mainly about requirements. Very, very little of it is optional, if you're doing it with even a modicum of care. There's no sitting on the couch with a cup of coffee and the remote control, saying to yourself, I don't really have to feed that baby. I don't have to change his dirty diaper. I don't have to keep an eye on the toddler when she's around the cat or take her to the pediatrician when she's a hot little bundle of bright red pulling at her ear and sobbing. Motherhood is mainly a roundelay of thou shalt, shalt, shalt.

Nana, unless she has become de facto Mom for some sad reason, is pretty much purely about desire. I've fed the baby, changed the diaper, crawled around on the floor while he went straight for the electrical outlet or the dog's tail. But I've done that because I offered and was accepted. Most grandparents are tethered but not tied, connected but not compelled, except by choice.

and

Is there anything better than sitting in a rocking chair with a little boy next to you while you read him Goodnight Moon? Is there anything more magical than the connection between reader and book, Nana reading and grandson listening? Arthur discovered the book The Story of Ferdinand, and because of the gentle bull, he is interested in both flowers and bumblebees. I assume he learning lessons about the possibility of being both strong and gentle, but who knows? All I know is that books are magic. The Story of Ferdinand was published when my father was seven years old, and yet here is his great-grandson attending as Ferdinand is taken to the bullring and refuses to fight. 

Nanaville can easily be read in a single day, but as with most of Quindlen's books (a half dozen of which I have written about here), I prefer to read slowly, savoring this new book, drawing it out as long as possible in an attempt to make it last just a little bit longer.

My only grandchild (a beautiful, intelligent and kind-hearted young woman) is turning 17 this summer, has two part-time jobs lined up, and is heading off to college in the fall. While much of Quindlen's vignettes and advice apply to new grandparents, this gem of a book is one I look forward to reading again. My daughter is engaged to be married this fall and is hoping to start a family. I must admit, I would love to cuddle another little grandbaby again some day...

Now that I've finished her latest release, I want to get a copy and read Alternate Side, a novel of Quindlen's that was published 2018, which I somehow neglected to read. 

I received a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

More Than Enough

 

More Than Enough by Anna Quindlen

Fiction

2026

Finished on August 21, 2026

Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

A woman finds herself asking surprising questions about her family and friends in this wise, wonderful novel of life, loss, and moving on—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of After Annie.

High school English teacher Polly Goodman can talk about everything and anything with the women in her book club, which is why they’ve become her closest friends and, along with the support of her veterinarian husband, the bedrock of her life. Her private school students, her fraught relationship with mother, her struggles with IVF—Polly’s book club friends have heard it all.

But when they give Polly an ancestry test kit as a joke, the results match her with a stranger. Despite it seeming clear that this match is a mistake, Polly cannot help combing through her own family history for answers. Then, when it seems that the book club circle of four will become three, Polly learns how friendships can change your life in the most profound ways.

Written with Quindlen’s trademark warmth, humor, and insight into the power of love and hope, More Than Enough explores how we find ourselves again and again through the relationships that define us.

Another winner by Anna Quindlen! I very much enjoyed this novel, which feels like an old, favorite sweater, wrapping me up in tender moments between friends and family. Quindlen addresses difficult life situations such as infertility, dementia, and cancer with great sensitivity. While some of the secondary characters aren't fully realized, Polly, Sarah, Garrison, and Mark are as familiar to me as friends in my own social circle. I remember reading a lot of books about women's friendships back in the 1990s, but Quindlen refrains from cliches and overly saccharine scenes between her characters. This one's a keeper to read again at a later date.

Highly recommend!

Looking Back - How Reading Changed My Life

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.

How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen

Nonfiction - Essays

1998 Library of Contemporary Thought

Read in September 2000

Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

A recurring theme throughout Anna Quindlen's How Reading Changed My Life is the comforting premise that readers are never alone. "There was waking, and there was sleeping. And then there were books," she writes, "a kind of parallel universe in which anything might happen and frequently did, a universe in which I might be a newcomer but never really a stranger. My real, true world." Later, she quotes editor Hazel Rochman: "Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but, most important, it finds homes for us everywhere." Indeed, Quindlen's essays are full of the names of "friends," real or fictional—Anne of Green Gables and Heidi; Anthony Trollope and Jane Austen, to name just a few—who have comforted, inspired, educated, and delighted her throughout her life. In four short essays Quindlen shares her thoughts on the act of reading itself ("It is like the rubbing of two sticks together to make a fire, the act of reading, an improbable pedestrian task that leads to heat and light"); analyzes the difference between how men and women read ("there are very few books in which male characters, much less boys, are portrayed as devoted readers"); and cheerfully defends middlebrow literature: Most of those so-called middlebrow readers would have readily admitted that the Iliad set a standard that could not be matched by What Makes Sammy Run? or Exodus. But any reader with common sense would also understand intuitively, immediately, that such comparisons are false, that the uses of reading are vast and variegated and that some of them are not addressed by Homer.

My Original Thoughts (2000):

Pretty good, but not as good as Ex Libris (Fadiman). A little dry and boring in spots. A few good quotes and passages. 11 great reading lists.

My Current Thoughts:

I own seven books (fiction and nonfiction) by Anna Quindlen, which I've read and loved, but this fell short of my expectations. I wish I had written down some of those good quotes and passages. Ah, well. I can probably borrow a copy from the library and see if my opinion has changed over the years.

Still Life with Bread Crumbs

Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen
Fiction
2014 Random House
Finished on 2/4/14
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)





Publisher’s Blurb:

Still Life with Bread Crumbs begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an unlikely heroine for many women. Her career is now descendent, her bank balance shaky, and she has fled the city for the middle of nowhere. There she discovers, in a tree stand with a roofer named Jim Bates, that what she sees through a camera lens is not all there is to life.

Brilliantly written, powerfully observed, Still Life with Bread Crumbs is a deeply moving and often very funny story of unexpected love, and a stunningly crafted journey into the life of a woman, her heart, her mind, her days, as she discovers that life is a story with many levels, a story that is longer and more exciting than she ever imagined.

It’s been four years since I read Quindlen’s amazing novel, Every Last One. That book took my breath away! It sucker-punched with me with its too-close-for-comfort plot and has stayed with me ever since the day I finished. I’ve read other novels and works of nonfiction by Quindlen, yet Every Last One remains my favorite. I was so excited when I received an ARC of Still Life with Bread Crumbs (love the cover art!) and had high hopes for another winner, but as far as I was concerned, this new one missed the mark. It was entertaining and held my interest, but something was lacking, keeping me from running out to buy the hardcover edition when it hit the shelves. In spite of my slight disappointment, Quindlen remains one of my favorite authors, tapping into the psyche of women my age.

On aging (and heart attacks):

There were nights when she woke with a barbed-wire fence of minor but undeniable pain around her heart, and she rehearsed what she’d eaten that day—raisin bran, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chicken and rice, the cuisine of a freshman at boarding school—and convinced herself that it was indigestion, then wondered if she was having the female version of a heart attack, which she had been told was often overlooked, which seemed right since her experience was that women overlooked most of what their hearts told them. In the morning she felt fine except for the fact that she had made her hands into little paws beneath her cheek and they had gone numb at the wrists. In recent years what she missed most about her youth was sleep, that ability to fall into a hole of unconsciousness and land, softly and without sensation, at the bottom, to awake ten hours later rested and with skin remarkably uncreased.

On becoming:

She had been so relieved when the car had turned in to the bumpy gravel drive, when she saw the dog emerge from the back shed, when she opened the door to what had become a familiar smell of old woodsmoke, mildew, and vegetable soup. One day she had been out walking and she had wondered whether she’d become a different person in the last year, maybe because of what Paige Whittington had said about the dog pictures. Then when she really thought about it she realized she’d been becoming different people for as long as she could remember but had never really noticed, or had put it down to moods, or marriage, or motherhood. The problem was that she’d thought that at a certain point she would be a finished product. Now she wasn’t sure what that might be, especially when she considered how sure she had been about it at various times in the past, and how wrong she’d been. She considered the weight at the foot of the bed. For how many years had she said confidently that she was not a dog person? It just goes to show, whatever that meant. Her father had used that expression all the time. It just goes to show, sweetheart!

Final Thoughts:

While not as impressive as Every Last One (and maybe One True Thing), Still Life with Bread Crumbs is certainly a worthwhile read and one that I enjoyed a great deal. It may be a few more years before she publishes another novel, but meanwhile I still have Quindlen’s Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake in my stacks. Can’t wait!

Miller's Valley

Miller's Valley by Anna Quindlen
Fiction
20106 Random House
Finished on April 7, 2016
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

"No one ever leaves the town where they grew up, not really, even if they go," says Mimi Miller as she tells the story of her life, from the 1960s to the present, in a small American town on the verge of change. The Miller family has lived and farmed in Miller's Valley for generations, but Mimi sees change looming at the corners of her community and within the walls of her home. As she grows up and discovers sex, love, and ambition, what has seemed bound together begins to drift apart: Mimi's mother from her reclusive sister, Ruth; her damaged brother Tommy from his family and son; and the community itself, menaced by the lingering presence of government officials. As Mimi looks back on the past, she comes to understand that her family and her town itself may always have been destined to disappear.

Anna Quindlen's stunning new novel is a masterly study of family, memory, loss, and ultimately, discovery and finding home. Miller's Valley reminds us that the place where you grew up can disappear, and the people in it too, but all will live on in your heart forever.


I've read quite a few books by Anna Quindlen over the years. Looking at her list of fiction, I realize that I've read all her published novels with the exception of just one (Rise and Shine). Some have been absolutely outstanding and others have been very good, but none have been mediocre. The good ones still leave me longing for more, wishing for another amazing story, but I keep reading and keep hoping for something new that will move me in the same way that both Every Last One and One True Thing did.

Miller's Valley was an enjoyable read, but I didn't love it nearly as much as some other readers. I liked the older Mimi and felt that the epilogue (which reveals Mimi as a wife, mother and a grandmother) was the best part of the entire book. 

Final Thoughts:

Miller's Valley is certainly worth reading, but I didn't find any notable passages and it's not one I'll pick up again. I still have Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake (one of Quindlen's collections of essays) and don't quite know why I haven't read it yet. It's been on my shelf for a few years now, so maybe this will be the year.

Mailbox Monday

Welcome to Mailbox Monday, a meme started by Marcia and now hosted on its own blog.

Miller's Valley 

by Anna Quindlen

On sale April 5, 2016

Whooohooo! I'm a huge fan of Quindlen's books, both fiction and nonfiction, so I was thrilled to snag a copy of her upcoming release last week at work. JoAnn (of Lakeside Musing) says it's the best book she's read this year, so I was more than eager to start reading it on Saturday afternoon. I'm already on page 142 (past the halfway mark) and look forward to reading more later tonight. I don't know if it will be my favorite read for 2016, but so far it's very good.

Filled with the remarkable insight that is the hallmark of Anna Quindlen's beloved bestsellers, this extraordinary novel is about a woman coming of age as she unearths surprising secrets about her family, and unexpected truths about herself.

"No one ever leaves the town where they grew up, not really, even if they go," says Mimi Miller as she tells the story of her life, from the 1960s to the present, in a small American town on the verge of change. The Miller family has lived and farmed in Miller's Valley for generations, but Mimi sees change looming at the corners of her community and within the walls of her home. As she grows up and discovers sex, love, and ambition, what has seemed bound together begins to drift apart: Mimi's mother from her reclusive sister, Ruth; her damaged brother Tommy from his family and son; and the community itself, menaced by the lingering presence of government officials. As Mimi looks back on the past, she comes to understand that her family and her town itself may always have been destined to disappear.

Anna Quindlen's stunning new novel is a masterly study of family, memory, loss, and, ultimately, discovery and finding home. Miller's Valley reminds us that the place where you grew up can disappear, and the people in it too, but all will live on in your heart forever.

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