Droll Wit And Delightful Details Make ‘Writers & Lovers’ A Winning Read

Writers & Lovers

by Lily King

Hardcover, 324 pages | purchase

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lily King ‘s new fresh, her fifth, wo n’t transport you to an alien venue the means her final one did, but oh my, it ‘s a commodity read. After Euphoria ( 2014 ), a amply researched and imagined tragic love triangle inspired by anthropologist Margaret Mead ‘s life, King returns to her comfort zone : a distressed young woman finding her direction in late twentieth century New England. set in 1997 — two years before the publication of King ‘s first novel, The Pleasing Hour — Writers & Lovers is narrated by 31-year-old Casey Peabody, who is struggling to finish writing her first novel under the crushing weight of college lend debts and grief for her beget ‘s recent, unexpected death. She ‘s a weepy, anxious mess — however indeed sympathetic you may want to bake her some cookies. No one could accuse Casey of lack of discipline. When she manages to sleep at all, she gets astir early to walk her landlord ‘s frump so she can make it back to her desk by 6:30 to put in a few hours of writing before biking three miles into Cambridge, Mass. for the “ unmindful distractions ” of her demanding waitressing job. By the fourth dimension she bikes back to her dampen, converted garden shed in Brookline, it ‘s after midnight .

When we meet Casey, she ‘s feeling blasted apart by a passionate matter with a poet she met at a prestigious writing residency she attended besides soon after her mother ‘s death. Like several of King ‘s earlier heroines, Casey has been unlucky in love, beginning with a painfully flawed forefather and go to a series of “ on and off, here then gone ” boyfriends.

There ‘s nothing alien or startlingly new about this fib, but ‘Writers & Lovers ‘ is leading proof that literature does n’t have to be groundbreaking to be absolutely compelling .
Muriel, one of her few friends who has n’t given up on writing — and a shine exemplar of female friendship — brings Casey to a book sign at which she meets two love interests who come to represent her two roads in a scandalmongering wood : academy award, an older, celebrated generator who has been raising his adorable ( bordering on cloying ) sons solo since he lost his young wife to cancer, and one of Oscar ‘s workshop students, a high school teacher with a nick front tooth and a rusted-out car. The fresh keeps us wondering which way Casey will veer. There ‘s nothing alien or startlingly newfangled about this report, but Writers & Lovers is leading proof that literature does n’t have to be groundbreaking to be absolutely compelling. In fact, King ‘s novel — about the choices and sacrifices involved in holding onto a dream — would be a worthy addition to writing program course of study. not only does Casey ‘s floor capture how hard it can be to believe in yourself, stay the course, and good finish the damn book when all your friends are getting paychecks and promotions, marrying and having babies — but besides, reassurance that you do n’t have to break the mold to write a capital book .

Of course, writing a beautifully as King does helps. But you besides need to develop a tough clamber. After Casey ‘s arrogant landlord sneers at her, “ You know … I just find it extraordinary that you think you have something to say, ” Casey thinks, “ I do n’t write because I think I have something to say. I write because if I do n’t, everything feels tied worse. ” Among the elements that make Writers & Lovers so winning are the perfectly calibrated little details, convincing conversations, and droll wit. “ Let ‘s hope your next six years are a little more stimulate, sweetheart pie, ” a mail agency clerk comments when Casey confides how long she ‘s been working on the stack of manuscripts she ‘s sending to likely agents. “ still at it, ” the like salesclerk remarks when Casey returns to mail a revised transcript. “ Yup. ” “ Well, ca n’t shoot you for trying, ” the clerk says. The novel, filled with credible lows and well-earned highs, zips along with dry jabs at men who do n’t listen ( including several callous, abrupt doctors, like the gynecologist whose examination makes Casey “ feel like a cable car being jacked up for a tire change ” ), contrasted with a few who do listen — well adequate to actually hear.

Writers & Lovers is a book about passion, hope, grief, determination, and finding one ‘s direction. It ‘s besides about craving beloved, class, and success. And it ‘s about learning to stop worrying so much about how men “ are perceiving you, at the great expense of what you yourself are feeling about them. ” At a nadir, King ‘s narrator stops in a bookshop on her way to work and browses through William Styron ‘s memoir of depressive disorder, Darkness Visible. She notes, “ The writing has that bare lucidity of person trying to tell you the truest thing they know. ” That is n’t precisely King ‘s accomplishment in this fresh. Writers & Lovers is besides liberally infused with heart and soul and brain and wisdom of solomon to be called blunt .