A novel can be bad in an entertaining way--and so we have Anna Quindlen's new book.
This is as cliched as a Lifetime Original Movie, but, because Quindlen is a Pulitzer winner (and her name generates sales), she has the support of a major publishing house.
The new book concerns a mother of four who suffers a fatal aneurysm right after dinner. Her friend, Annemarie, once wrestled with a near-deadly addiction to painkillers--and of course the new death triggers a relapse, or a near-relapse.
Annemarie has many fond memories of her friend. (The two grown women called each other "babe," almost continuously--and this is so strange that it seems like material for a Kristen Wiig sketch on "Saturday Night Live.") Annemarie once had a near-O.D. experience on the steps of a Mennonite house, and, having awakened, she found a new sense of purpose in Mennonite art. She built up a Mennonite business and, with some "tough love" speeches (apparently generated by A.I. screenwriting software), she dusted herself off and kicked her addiction.
Nothing happens in Quindlen's novel, for 200 pages. Because Annemarie's addiction days all unfolded in the past, we're just dragged through flashback after flashback, and there are occasional one-sentence interludes about the present. (Will I stay "clean," in the wake of this loss? Annemarie wondered....I just don't know....)
At the two-thirds mark, things do heat up. I suspect an editor prodded Quindlen, with regard to all the flashbacks. Randomly, suddenly, a sex abuse plot takes shape.
This is the clumsiest book I've read in a long while, and it reminds me that novel-writing is hard. It's like if you see a high-school production of a musical....you then rediscover your fondness for the Manhattan Theatre Club.
One star for Ms. Quindlen!
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