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Laurie Colwin's two books of essays with recipes, Home Cooking and More Home Cooking, are on the small shelf of Rachel's Favorite Food Writing. But great love for an author's nonfiction does not necessarily translate to great love, or even any love, for her fiction, so I was a little dubious about A Big Storm Knocked it Over-- especially since it's in one of my least favorite genres, realistic novels about the lives and loves of upper-crust urban couples. Also, when I mentioned it here when I bought it, several people pointed out that it's a posthumous novel (Colwin died unexpectedly and relatively young, of heart failure in her sleep) and could have used another rewrite.
I wish I could say that after all that, it blew me away, but it didn't. However, it gets major points for being sufficiently well-written to make me finish it, despite my lack of interest in fiction about upper-crust couples having babies and shopping for expensive yet organic baby items.
The novel is about a book designer, Jane Louise, who recently got married to her teenage sweetheart. (Who is a Vietnam vet and subject to depression, though Colwin doesn't make as much of this as, say, I would.) Her boss, Sven, is constantly making sexual comments that I would classify as harassment, although Jane Louise sees him as an Inappropriate Work Crush and his flirting as a guilty pleasure.
Her best friend, Edie, is a cake designer who lives with her business partner, Mokie, who is black. Every paragraph Mokie appears in makes some reference to him being black. Since the circles he moves in appear to be exclusively white and an interracial relationship is a big deal in that place and time, I can see why this would be a major issue. But not enough to justify every single interaction being all about him being black and the relationship being interracial. Jane Louise and her husband Teddy are also having an interracial relationship of sorts-- she's Jewish and he's a WASP-- and it gets a fair amount of play, but not to that extent.
Edie and Mokie get married, Jane Louise and Edie get pregnant and have babies, Sven leers at her, and Jane Louise worries neurotically that something terrible might happen, but nothing ever does. The end.
I am making this book sound much worse than it actually is. It's very well-written, and there are some pricelessly funny bits regarding the publishing industry and writers, of which my favorite involves the title of the book, which is also the title of a book-within-the-book. But it failed to overcome my prejudice against reading about rich white (OK, and black) people who suffer from existential anxiety even though their lives are much more perfect than mine.
I wish I could say that after all that, it blew me away, but it didn't. However, it gets major points for being sufficiently well-written to make me finish it, despite my lack of interest in fiction about upper-crust couples having babies and shopping for expensive yet organic baby items.
The novel is about a book designer, Jane Louise, who recently got married to her teenage sweetheart. (Who is a Vietnam vet and subject to depression, though Colwin doesn't make as much of this as, say, I would.) Her boss, Sven, is constantly making sexual comments that I would classify as harassment, although Jane Louise sees him as an Inappropriate Work Crush and his flirting as a guilty pleasure.
Her best friend, Edie, is a cake designer who lives with her business partner, Mokie, who is black. Every paragraph Mokie appears in makes some reference to him being black. Since the circles he moves in appear to be exclusively white and an interracial relationship is a big deal in that place and time, I can see why this would be a major issue. But not enough to justify every single interaction being all about him being black and the relationship being interracial. Jane Louise and her husband Teddy are also having an interracial relationship of sorts-- she's Jewish and he's a WASP-- and it gets a fair amount of play, but not to that extent.
Edie and Mokie get married, Jane Louise and Edie get pregnant and have babies, Sven leers at her, and Jane Louise worries neurotically that something terrible might happen, but nothing ever does. The end.
I am making this book sound much worse than it actually is. It's very well-written, and there are some pricelessly funny bits regarding the publishing industry and writers, of which my favorite involves the title of the book, which is also the title of a book-within-the-book. But it failed to overcome my prejudice against reading about rich white (OK, and black) people who suffer from existential anxiety even though their lives are much more perfect than mine.