A witty, honest, and hugely entertaining story for anyone who loves books, or has a difficult mother. And, let's face it, that's practically everybody . . .
On paper, Arabella Hicks seems more than qualified to teach her fiction class on the Upper West Side: she's a writer herself; she's passionate about books; she's even named after the heroine in a Georgette Heyer novel.
On the other hand, she's thirty-eight, single, and has been writing the same book for the last seven years. And she has been distracted recently: on the same day that Arabella teaches her class she also visits her mother in a nursing home outside the city. And every time they argue. Arabella wants the fighting to stop, but, as her mother puts it, "Just because we're family, doesn't mean we have to like each other." When her class takes a surprising turn and her lessons start to spill over into her weekly visits, she suddenly finds she might be holding the key to her mother's love and, dare she say it, her own inspiration. After all, as a lifelong lover of books, she knows the power of a good story.
"A Plume book."
Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics
Library Journal Review
Arabella Hicks was named after the main character in a romance novel, and this seems to lead her life in the trajectory of all things fiction. She's seven years into writing her novel, and her day job is teaching a fiction class in Manhattan. The rest of her time is taken up by her difficult mother, who's suffering from Parkinson's and living in a nursing home. Breen, a teacher at Gotham Writers' Workshop, structures her first novel as a treat for any fiction lover. Each chapter starts with Arabella's weekly fiction class and its topic, for example, "character" or "point of view." We get to sit in as she explains the subject matter and closes with an exercise for her students to work on at home. The students in the class are another set of characters, some wacky and some sweet, and one handsome older man, Chuck, flirts endlessly with Arabella. Arabella's class, her novel, a possible relationship with Chuck, and stressful visits to her mother, who might also have an interest in writing fiction, converge into a poignant, lovely read. For most fiction collections.-Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
The collision of truth and fiction can result in romance or even redemption-or so say the writing exercises and life lessons that make up Breen's debut novel. For years, Arabella Hicks's love life, like her writing life, has felt flat and fruitless. Still, the 38-year-old copy editor and part-time teacher can summon neither the drive to date nor the wherewithal to finish her novel, Courting Disaster, now seven years in the rewriting. She's anxious about her mother, Vera, whom she visits in a nursing home every Wednesday after teaching her writing class. Worried about Vera's Parkinson's disease-and still grieving her father's death-Arabella discovers her personal fears seeping into classroom discussions of plot, point of view and dialogue. One student, the well-spoken, well-to-do Chuck, begins a relationship with Arabella and thus installs himself into the mother-daughter drama. Breen, a writing instructor, sometimes overplays her hand, but she does inject a dose of originality into an otherwise familiar setup. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
With a name that conjures up windswept romance novels, you would expect Arabella Hicks' life to be as enchanted as that of a happily-after-heroine. Instead she's a middle-aged writer, teaching a fiction writing class, flirting with one of her students, and taking care of her ailing mother, Vera. As the semester wears on, Arabella and her students slowly reveal more of their private lives to one another, while Vera admits that she has written a story. Unfortunately, she can't think of the perfect ending and wants Arabella and her students to help her. But how can Arabella when she can't even think of an ending for her own unfinished story? Peppered with literary references and Arabella's class assignments, Breen's novel is surprisingly touching. Although Arabella's students resemble stock characters the wacky old lady, the beautiful girl hiding a terrible secret this is a poignant yet amusing tale of family relationships rendered even more satisfying by Breen's dispensing of Strunk & White-like advice.--Hatton, Hilary Copyright 2007 Booklist
Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics
Susan Breen is the award-winning author of The Fiction Class and the Maggie Dove mystery series. She teaches novel-writing at Gotham Writers and has been on the faculty of conferences from Cape Cod to Dubai. She loves stories about families, London, ghosts, guilt, atonement, dogs, Charles Dickens and Christmas. She likes the idea of collecting rare books, though so far she's only collected two, both of them being early editions of A Christmas Carol .
