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Following the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman.
Blindsided by her mother's sudden death and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she has been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.
Writers & Lovers follows Casey??a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist??in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King's trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another… (meer)
Writers & Lovers by Lily King is a 2020 Grove Press publication.
Casey is holding on to her dream of being a novelist, even though she’s deeply in debt and grieving both the loss of her mother and a bad breakup. As she muddles through life, she begins dating two men, working several jobs, while hoping her novel finally sees the light of day…
I had the wrong idea about this book, based on its promotions, both the editorial and reader reviews. So, I went into it in the wrong frame of mind, I suppose.
Ultimately, though, this book should have been right up my alley in many ways. I read contemporary women’s fiction/romance on a regular basis, though these days, I’m looking for books featuring more mature- chronologically- characters than the ones in this book. Still, though, I know exactly how this should go and mostly it followed the formula, with a few exceptions.
The thing is that somehow this book managed to get a lift from the ‘literary’ crowd. The publisher or whoever- masterfully crafted promotions to draw in those who wouldn’t ordinarily read contemporary women’s fiction, or a book labeled as a romance. But, at the end of the day, that is exactly what this book is.
As such, for the veteran reader of books in this category, this one was just okay. Part of my discontent is the age of the characters- and while I would agree with some who have said there are ‘coming of age’ elements in the story- I thought Casey was too old to be ‘coming of age’.
I did appreciate the writing, the lack of uncomfortable and unnecessary content, and of course, I’m will always be a sucker for a happily ever after- even if it all comes hastily together in last ten percent of the book. I even agreed with her love triangle choice, but as far as drawing me into the drama, eliciting strong emotions, or creating great chemistry, I’m afraid the story fell woefully short.
Overall, it’s not a terrible effort by any means- it just not as good as the hype would have you believe. That said, I can see where folks who seldom read this type of material found themselves wrapped up in it. But I can assure you there are many, many others out there that can really hold you spellbound- but sadly, they will probably never get this level of credit because people just won’t give them an open-minded chance to impress them...
Camila "Casey" Peabody, the thirty-one-year-old protagonist of this beautifully written-book, lives in Boston. It is 1997 and she is recovering from being dumped by her long-time boyfriend, followed by a steamy affair with a (later learned to be married) poet she met during a prestigious writing residency that took place too soon after her mother's sudden death. Casey has been working on her novel for six years. To support her writing habit, she waits tables at an upscale Harvard Square restaurant, Iris. She is buried under a mountain of student loan debt that she cannot pay and living in a moldy, minuscule potting shed attached to the garage at the back of the house of an obnoxious family acquaintance, whose dog she walks for a discount on her rent.
A child golf prodigy who walked away from the sport when she was about to go to college on a full golf scholarship, she, we learn, is conflicted about her father, a "perv," she calls him, after she learns he is a peeping Tom, and because he is the one who pushed her into golf her feelings about the sport are too messily tied to him. Casey attends a book signing with her writer friend, Muriel, where she meets her next two love interests: Oscar Kolton, a successful, older author, who is a widower with two young sons, and Silas, one of the writer's in Oscar's writing workshop, who teaches high school. Casey eventually finishes her novel and gives it to Muriel to read. Muriel loves it, provides some editing feedback, and Casey sends copies of the novel off to various agents.
While waiting for a verdict on her novel, and weathering the rejections that come one after another, we get to see Casey’s anxiety and abandonment/trust issues devolve into full-blown panic attacks as she tries to cope with the crushing debt, some medical scares, her mother’s death, her father’s betrayal all close in on her, and her inability to choose between Oscar and Silas. Weaved into the story is Casey’s fascination with a flock of geese who inhabit the banks of the Charles River, which she sums up this way:
“I love these geese. They make my chest tight and full and help me believe that things will be all right again, that I will pass through this time as I have passed through other times, that the cast and threatening ahead of me is a mere specter, that life is lighter and more playful than I’m giving it credit for.”
As the title suggests, writers and lovers are the main ingredients of the book, and the conflict between writing and loving are as much evident throughout the story as her indecision between her two lovers. Despite the heaviness of the challenges Casey is dealing with throughout, the ending is surprisingly light. ( )
A novel about writing novels; a slow crawl out of depression; a handful of love stories; a bright (well-earned) ending. I contemplated putting this book down for good halfway through, but I am so, so glad I didn’t. ( )
I adore this book. Lily's writing is fantastic throughout the entire novel. It's a very intimate book that's much more character-based as opposed to plot-based. You follow the main character, a girl in her young twenties, as she works through the grief of losing her mother and struggles to become a writer and figure out what it is she wants to do with her life. It is a book that I will gladly be picking up again to reread and is one of those stories that I won't tire of years from now. ( )
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
For my sister, Lisa, with love and gratitude
Eerste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
I have a pact with myself not to think about money in the morning.
Citaten
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
I don't write because I think I have something to say. I write because if I don't, everything feels even worse.
It's a particular kind of pleasure, of intimacy, loving a book with someone.
Marriage is the polar opposite of a fairy tale, my mother said.
When I was visiting her a few years ago she hugged me and said, 'Tomorrow after you leave I will stand here at this window and remember that yesterday you were right here with me.' And now she's dead and I have that feeling all the time, no matter where I stand.
He's still leaning against his car and turning only his head in my direction, as if he likes his pose too much to undo it.
I don't know if they're friends outside of the building, but they work every shift together like a pair of evil skaters, setting each other up for another dastardly deed, then preening around the room when it comes off.
And yet now I can't remember what we said to each other. Conversations in foreign languages don't linger in my head like they do in English. They don't last. They remind me of the invisible-ink pen my mother sent me for Christmas when I was fifteen and she had gone, an irony that escaped her but not me.
In the morning I ache for my mother. But late at night it is Luke I mourn for.
He kissed me where I was touching, just below my collarbone, in that place where all my feelings got caught.
I feel like a hag in a fairy tale, waiting to be made young and supple again.
All your life there will be men like this, I think. It sounds a lot like my mother's voice.
I wheel it around to his window and ring my bell out of habit. It is the sound of me coming to his cabin at the end of the day. I want to take that sound and stuff it into a bag with rocks and throw it into the river.
I squat there and think about how you get trained early on as a woman to perceive how others are perceiving you, at the great expense of what you yourself are feeling about them.
He seems genuinely happy for me. You can't always count on a guy for that.
The air between us crackles, as it does when you speak of your beloved dead.
I feel like there's a misshapen ball in my lungs that isn't leaving much room for air.
He can sound wise in love, but he's bad at it, too.
We pass beneath a maple that has already started to drop leaves. They crack beneath our feet and lease the smell of fall.
I take his hand and he pulls me in and kisses me on the temple and we look through the windows again as if the house and everything inside it belongs to both of us.
You don't realize how much effort you've put into covering things up until you try to dig them out.
It always takes me by surprise when someone wants to kiss me, even if they've met me at midnight with wine and a blanket. People change their mind. Between the idea and the reality falls the Shadow.
We hold hands on the way back, but it feels like we're still kissing. My whole body responds to his hand in mine.
Usually a man in my life slows my work down, but it turns out two men give me fresh energy for the revision.
Small unexpected things begin to thrum across the whole book. I feel like a conductor, finally able to hear all the instruments at once.
I take a breath, and it becomes so deep I realize I haven't taken one for a while.
It has been a long time since I've seen them. Three years, maybe. They look older, like something is gently tugging them to the floor.
There seems no end to the procession of things that make my mother feel more dead.
Nearly every guy I've dated believed they should already be famous, believed that greatness was their destiny and they were already behind schedule. An early moment of intimacy often involved a confession of this sort: a childhood vision, teacher's prophesy, a genius IQ. At first, with my boyfriend in college, I believed it, too. Later, I thought I was just choosing delusional men. Now I understand it's how boys are raised to think, how they are lured into adulthood. I've met ambitious women, driven women, but no woman has ever told me that greatness was her destiny.
Being around kids means thinking a whole lot of things you can't say.
He's very tall and very thin, a knife blade of intensity.
Afterward I ask them to write about a time they felt like that. They open their notebooks slowly. They're wary, like when you try to feed a squirrel.
I float like a balloon back to the classroom.
Laatste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Following the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman.
Blindsided by her mother's sudden death and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she has been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.
Writers & Lovers follows Casey??a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist??in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King's trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another
)
)
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1
Casey is holding on to her dream of being a novelist, even though she’s deeply in debt and grieving both the loss of her mother and a bad breakup. As she muddles through life, she begins dating two men, working several jobs, while hoping her novel finally sees the light of day…
I had the wrong idea about this book, based on its promotions, both the editorial and reader reviews. So, I went into it in the wrong frame of mind, I suppose.
Ultimately, though, this book should have been right up my alley in many ways. I read contemporary women’s fiction/romance on a regular basis, though these days, I’m looking for books featuring more mature- chronologically- characters than the ones in this book. Still, though, I know exactly how this should go and mostly it followed the formula, with a few exceptions.
The thing is that somehow this book managed to get a lift from the ‘literary’ crowd. The publisher or whoever- masterfully crafted promotions to draw in those who wouldn’t ordinarily read contemporary women’s fiction, or a book labeled as a romance. But, at the end of the day, that is exactly what this book is.
As such, for the veteran reader of books in this category, this one was just okay. Part of my discontent is the age of the characters- and while I would agree with some who have said there are ‘coming of age’ elements in the story- I thought Casey was too old to be ‘coming of age’.
I did appreciate the writing, the lack of uncomfortable and unnecessary content, and of course, I’m will always be a sucker for a happily ever after- even if it all comes hastily together in last ten percent of the book. I even agreed with her love triangle choice, but as far as drawing me into the drama, eliciting strong emotions, or creating great chemistry, I’m afraid the story fell woefully short.
Overall, it’s not a terrible effort by any means- it just not as good as the hype would have you believe. That said, I can see where folks who seldom read this type of material found themselves wrapped up in it. But I can assure you there are many, many others out there that can really hold you spellbound- but sadly, they will probably never get this level of credit because people just won’t give them an open-minded chance to impress them...
2.5 stars (