So Happy Together

May 11, 2009
McFadden overreaches in her follow-up to The Richest Season
, a too-busy family drama overflowing with common conundrums. Claire Noble, at 45, believes she's on the cusp of a new, liberated life—she's one year away from early retirement; her daughter, Amy, is grown and out of the house; and she and her fiancé, Rick, are planning to move from New Jersey to Arizona, where they can pursue their passions (photography for her, golf for him). The plans soon turn into pipe dreams when a massively pregnant Amy returns home, Claire's father's Parkinson's disease rapidly advances, and Rick has trouble coping with it all. In the midst of chaos, Claire drags her family to Provincetown, Mass., where she'll take part in a prestigious photography workshop while the town's romantic charms work their magic on Claire's clan. But with so many complications constantly disrupting the lives of major and minor characters, it's difficult to connect much less keep up with who's suffering from what. McFadden's prose has its moments of clarity and emotion, but the narrative leans too heavily on phoned-in sentiment to make an impact.

June 1, 2009
A middle-aged woman anticipates new freedom, only to have troubles land on her with a vengeance, in McFadden's follow-up to The Richest Season (2008).

Claire, 45, is ready to get out of Jersey. She's winding up 25 years of teaching, has taken up serious study of photography and is engaged to marry Rick, a golf-loving hedonist with an Arizona townhouse. Then Claire's estranged daughter Amy, 23, returns home, her weight problem apparently worse than ever—until she gives birth just as her mother is about to leave for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: a career-making photography workshop in Cape Cod. Claire is now stuck with a resentful daughter, a newborn granddaughter, Rose, whose paternity Amy won't discuss, and elderly parents who rely mostly on her, since out-of-state brother Eugene is too busy with his own career and family. Claire's father Joe has Parkinson's, and her mother Fanny, increasingly addled at 77, can't cope. The workshop and the wedding must wait, but what is she going to do about John, the freelance writer who's supposed to be renting her house while she's in Provincetown? He finds another place, but he wants to use her photographs in an article on New Jersey's abandoned canal system; working with John, Claire finds herself dangerously attracted. Then she gets another chance at the workshop, and with Amy, Rose and her parents (sprung from assisted living) in tow, Claire heads for Cape Cod. There, Joe tries to reconnect with a wartime love, Ava. Upset that Joe has never come clean with her about Ava, Fanny seeks solace in Buddhism and romance with local restaurateur Dominick. Provincetown also happens to be home base for John, who is working to publicize the plight of endangered whales and seals. The ever-escalating complications are fun, but this story of second chances smacks of middle-aged wish-fulfillment: There's even a scene in which Rick and John fight over Claire.

A busy plot, rendered in listless prose and populated by one-dimensional characters.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 1, 2009
Teacher and single mother Claire has always put others first, but at 45, shes ready to follow her own dreams: attending the prestigious Cape Cod Arts Center summer photography workshop, marrying Rick, and moving from her old New Jerseyhouse to a modern Arizona condo on the golf course. Unfortunately, her life takes another turn when she finds a very pregnant Amy, her runaway daughter, on her doorstep. Then, after Clairerealizes that her parents are desperately unhappy in their assisted-living complex, self-absorbed Rick, unwilling to become enmeshed in her family concerns, postpones the wedding. When Claire decides to stay home, attractive bad-boy conservationist John Poole presses her to photograph the local canal for a historic-preservation project. Offered a place in the autumn workshop, she packs up the entire family, never realizing just how much will change in all their lives from Claires first hesitant steps to personal fulfillment. McFaddens richly nuancednovel examines choices and secret yearnings within a richcontext of history, tradition, and environmental issues.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)