Old Lovegood Girls

March 1, 2020
Veteran Godwin's latest (Grief Cottage, 2017, etc.) tracks a half-century friendship between two very different yet oddly compatible women. The dean and dorm mistress of Lovegood College pair Feron Hood and Merry Jellicoe as roommates in 1958, hoping that sunny, outgoing Merry will be a steadying influence on Feron, who has recently lost her alcoholic mother and fled from an abusive stepfather. The girls do indeed form a lasting bond even though Merry leaves after a single semester to run the family tobacco farm when her parents are killed in a plane crash. They have both taken their first steps as writers under the guidance of Literature and Composition teacher Maud Petrie, and during their mostly long-distance relationship, Feron will be goaded to write three novels by Merry's occasional magazine publications; she is at work on a fourth about their friendship as the book closes. The two women rarely meet in person, and Feron is bad about answering letters, but we see that they remain important in each other's thoughts. Godwin unfolds their stories in a meditative, elliptical fashion, circling back to reveal defining moments that include tragic losses, unexpected love, and nurturing friendships. Self-contained, uncommunicative Feron seems the more withholding character, but Merry voices one of the novel's key insights: "Everyone has secrets no one else should know" while Feron reveals essential truths about her life in her novels. Maud Petrie and Lovegood dean Susan Fox, each of whom has secrets of her own, continue as strong presences for Feron and Merry, who have been shaped by Lovegood more enduringly than they might have anticipated. Feron's courtly Uncle Rowan and blunt Aunt Mabel, Merry's quirky brother Ritchie, devoted manager Mr. Jack, and a suave Navy veteran with intimate links to both women are among the many nuanced characters drawn by Godwin with their human contradictions and complexities on full display. A closing letter from Dean Fox movingly reiterates the novel's conjoined themes of continuity and change. Intelligent, reflective, satisfying fiction from an old master.

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March 30, 2020
Godwin’s disappointing latest (after Grief Cottage) examines the trajectory of a friendship between two college roommates from 1958 to late 1999. Feron Hood, secretive and self-contained, is a survivor of a tragic and abusive past and finds comfort in her relationship at the Southern Lovegood College with Merry Grace Jellicoe, a confident tobacco heiress with an open-hearted innocence. Using alternating viewpoints, correspondence between the two, and occasional scenes of reunion, Godwin tracks the push-pull dynamic of their friendship. In 1968, Feron, an aspiring writer living in New York City, grows jealous of Merry for publishing a short story in the Atlantic Monthly. Merry’s success fuels Feron’s creative impulse, while Merry is intrigued by her friend’s experiences in New York. Though Feron purloins Merry’s personal history for her own writing, Merry’s loyalty to Feron never wavers. Beyond the envy, Feron develops into a genuinely devoted friend, and eventually helps Merry with her family’s tobacco business. Repetition of language and dialogue from one scene to the next and dull descriptions of the writing process unfortunately blunt an otherwise moving reflection on long-term friendship. Godwin is not at her best here.

Starred review from April 15, 2020
Lovegood College is an all-women sanctuary of southern etiquette and covert subversion. In 1958, the new dean, Susan Fox, who has survived a rough patch, must choose a roommate for a new student, Feron Hood, who also seems to have escaped a dire predicament. She pairs her with tobacco company heiress Meredith Grace Jellicoe, aptly called Merry. As opposites, the girls are instantly intrigued with each other, then find common purpose in their desire to write. Godwin (Grief Cottage, 2017), a word-perfect novelist of exceptional psychological refinement who has published a memoir about her struggles as a writer, infuses this tale of intrepid women with a profound inquiry into the ethics of storytelling and how literature can chart a way through tragedies. Feron and Merry are abruptly separated and end up living radically different lives as they each endure terrible loss. Merry takes over the farm just as tobacco falls from king to murderer, eventually finding solace in a Bible group. Feron works in New York and acquires a generous literary mentor who encourages her to cultivate the strangeness. The women remain connected in delectably plotted ways and maintain a suspenseful, decades-long correspondence. Secret traumas are slowly revealed, adjacent characters are magnetizing, and Godwin, as fluent in humor as in sorrow, sagely illuminates matters of faith, art, ambition, and generosity while celebrating change and steadfastness, friendship and love.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Godwin's mastery and following grow with each book, and literary fiction lovers will seek out this intricately structured and emotionally rich tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)