Beached on the Reef of Change
August 19th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
You or Someone Like You is intellectually satisfying: the plot drives you forward, its ideas reel you in…and the use of literature and literary lions mixed with the writings and writers of today is thrilling. And it’s topical, too, since like Anne, I underwent the sea-change of my husband of 22 years – not a religious upheaval, but just as titanic as Howard’s. Only he did not return, no matter how hard I fought for him. So there I was, beached on the reef of change, the same abyss that Anne feared, and my lovely life wrecked. But you do go on. And one of the things you gain is that when you read a book like this, you read it with more urgency and clarity. Thank you so much, Chandler – and it’s nice to see that Anne does, after all, own her own domain.
Gail O’Donnell
Wilmington, DE
February 8th, 2010 at 11:42 am
Anne is an extraordinary character. Self possessed yet needy. Resourceful yet isolated. Brilliant yet obscured. Watching her get to know herself — and let others know her — through literature is fascinating and somehow a little sad. “… every human being connects a knowledge of books with self-respect and self-worth.”
These lines are so Burr: “Everything in L.A. aspires. Even the flowers. Aspiration ladens the bloom-opiated air.”