Fly Away Home: A Novel by Jennifer Weiner Paperback 2011-04-26 from Your Online Bookstore SKU: 0743294289-4-19581023
Table of Content
Reaching under the covers, she found the kittens, brother and sister twisted in a double S and sound asleep. She dragged them free and carted them in a drowsy bundle, still clutching each other, out to the dooryard garden and dumped them. "Go play! Sleeping till eleven A.M. No wonder you want to run up and down the stairs all night." Their golden eyes regarded her from their little black heads as with disapproval they watched her around to the garage.
Once the order was placed, he’d hand off his plate to Sylvie and return to their table, to his New York Times and his Wall Street Journal and the eternal consolation of his BlackBerry, and Sylvie would wait for his food. There would be menus, offered today by a girl in a trim black suit who stood behind a podium in the plushly carpeted entryway, beaming at the patrons as if their arrival represented the very pinnacle of her day and possibly of her lifetime. “We’ll do the buffet,” he’d announce, without asking whether there was one.
by Marge Piercy
She could hear Ross singing in the kitchen "La donna รจ mobile." He had caught a passion for opera from her own father. It was about the only field on which they could easily meet. Perhaps Ross had picked out the present himself and simply not noticed that nightgowns came in different sizes. He had not actually bought the gift, she assumed. Nowadays he sent his secretary Lorraine out to shop, but Lorraine knew Daria's sizes and would never have made such an error. She had a reassuring image of Lorraine in one of her beige fitted suits poking at the word processor or shunting calls around the three-man law office.
Fly Away Home tells the story of Sylvie Woodruff and her daughters, Diana and Lizzie. Married for more than thirty years, Sylvie learns that her husband, Senator Richard Woodruff has had an affair. Sylvie retreats to her family's beach home in Connecticut to figure out what she wants to do with her marriage, and is ultimately joined by her daughters. The No. 1 Bestselling Author Jennifer Weiner's 'Fly Away Home' is a book on family issues.
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The next morning, Daria's birthday present from Ross was more intimate and frisky than had been true in years. He tended to give her safe gifts, leather pocketbooks, cardigan sweaters, or if he was feeling truly flush, small classically set jewels. This present was a nightgown and peignoir set in black satin and handmade lace. I'm not finished but I can say I'm not happy with this novel. I don't like any of the characters and don't particularly care what happens to them. And Weiner keeps referencing other political wives who've been cheated on as if it's a research document.
Sylvie, Diana, and Lizzie are all complex characters. They all are dealing with their own baggage, struggling to just get it right every day. The characters are so unlikeable and so one dimensional. There's really no reason for us to care about them or their challenges.
Fly Away Home: A Novel [First Atria Books Hardcover Edition]
I typically listen to audiobooks only during my commute, but with this one, I found myself looking for chances to listen. I was pulled into the story because Sylvie wasn't weak. Sure, she was blindsided, but she didn't just wither up. She also didn't hatch some crazy revenge plan. Diana and Lizzie weren't cliched characters, either.
But when she arrives, he blindsides her by announcing he wants a divorce. Surprised and devastated, Daria suspects he may be having an affair, but the reality is far worse and will tear apart the illusion of her perfectly happy family. I think it’s something that lots of women deal with, for lots of different reasons. We hold ourselves up to impossibly high standards—in terms of how we look, in terms of how well we balance jobs and kids and houses and husbands—and then we can end up being shamed for things that are beyond our control. For instance, if a man does something stupid—pays for prostitutes, tells ridiculous lies about a mistress, solicits anonymous sex in the men’s room—there’s a toxic cloud of shame that radiates out from the guilty party and stains everyone around him. Richard gave her a squeeze and planted another kiss in the center of her paralyzed, poisonous brow (perfectly safe, the dermatologist had assured her when he’d come to the apartment with his doctor’s bag full of needles and his mouth full of reassurance).
About the Author
She was the first in her family to attend college, studying at the University of Michigan. Winning a Hopwood Award for Poetry and Fiction enabled her to finish college and spend some time in France, and her formal schooling ended with an M.A. Her first book of poems, Breaking Camp, was published in 1968.
Everywhere she had to put on exhibitions to plug her cookbook in an unfamiliar studio with no rehearsal, no backup, no repeats and a technical staff she had never seen before. In the canvas bag wedged under the seat in front of her was that minimal equipment she needed for the two to four minutes she was given. Overall this was a great character study and a hard book to put down. It tackled serious issues, but was relatable and had plenty of humor. But at the end of the day, I think this is a really solid, accomplished book.
Lizzie finds purpose in life by taking care of Diana’s son Milo and then her father Richard, who is lost without Sylvie. The book explores what it is like to be the woman who stands behind the man confessing his extramarital affairs at the podium. So Jennifer Weiner is one of those authors that even when its "meh", its still good. She's just a talented storyteller who knows the formula of good women's fiction backward and forward and can deliver on a good tale.
Fly Away Home is set in various parts of Boston and to a small extent, Cambridge, so is an attractive locale, establishing a background to development and redevelopment that is integral to the story. Having visited Boston on numerous occasions I found this particularly interesting. Appearance is also an issue - Piercy refusing to endorse thin as necessary for a woman, giving most of the variously shaped women portrayed positive endorsement. Men are also portrayed with physical features under a woman's gaze, although here the WASP appearance of Ross is compared negatively to the large, warm images of Daria's preferred appearance later in the novel. Here, class and ethnic background are part of Daria's gaze.
I'm also finding the sister theme of one sister is the smart crabby sister and the other is the flighty sister really tiresome. In ways depressing look at the power wielded by real estate "gentrifiers" colluding with banks, insurance companies, and arsonists. Really enjoyed the characters and the growth of the main character, and found the information on how it works fascinating, if, as I said, depressing. I love to cook, but I struggle to find the time. The mother-daughter relationship is central to Fly Away Home. Discuss how the female characters reacted against their mothers in their own life choices.
You know, I can't remember if I've ever read this book before. I feel like I must have, because I've read all of Marge Piercy's novels except for two. But either I read this long ago and had forgotten it, or somehow I just missed it. The naivety of the central character rankled at times. The ‘happy ever after ‘ ending was a bit trite.
But soon she realizes that there is not a misunderstanding, and her husband is worse than a mere slumlord. Not plausible- her mom gets taken off life support and no one thinks to be at her bedside? Her husband suddenly and apologetically loves someone else? Almost like the author is as isolated from life as the protagonist.
Daria had never been religious after first communion. She had formally lost her faith in public high school — which she attended after parochial grade school — but she had never owned much. Nina, for all her martyrdom, was a long-lapsed Catholic who attended Mass only on the main holy days for the socializing and the pomp. Nina's father had been an anarchist who hated the Church; Daria's had not been a religious family. Her parents had made little fuss about her marrying a Protestant.
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