From the Publisher
In Houston in 1969, vulnerable and unformed Hope Fairman, wife, mother, indifferent housekeeper, is about to confront domestic disaster. Clay, her straight-arrow engineer husband, is going to split for another woman, leaving her the two kids (for a time...), the neglected house, the Cadillac she has never felt up to driving, and a life to be rebuilt from emotional ground zero. How Hope does just that in the aftermath of divorce and a devastating child-custody battle - with the help of a richly drawn cast of characters from the counterculture Unitarian Church, free school, and commune she embraces - forms the matter of this funny and dramatic book. Here is Alex, the seductive minister with the roving eye and the Esalen-hatched insights; Chloe, close friend, newly minted lawyer, fierce feminist; Fern, another good friend and a walking compendium of hippie garb and attitude; Gideon, lover, sensualist, one-time child prodigy on the violin; and Frederick, the troubled young black boy whose salvation becomes one of Hope's passions. As these and many other characters shuffle in and out of Hope's life, as she takes up photography and learns to handle the Cadillac, she will change and grow in ways that are surprising, touching, and utterly convincing.
Publishers Weekly
The plot of Page's first novel is predictable: woman "has" to marry at 18; husband tires of her aimlessness; he leaves for another woman; he gets custody of the kids on trumped-up grounds; wife finds identity on her own. What distinguishes the book is its setting: Houston, soon after the first Apollo moon landing. All the textures and issues of the time come into the picture: communes, Walter Cronkite, free schools, VISTA, underground newspapers, protest marches, Biafra, Mahara-ji. Hope Fairman experiences it all as her disgruntled husband, Clay, moves out, leaving the suburban house, Cadillac and the children. As she wafts through the "hippie-dippie lifestyle" and loses the kids to Clay, Hope expresses regret and self-doubt until a photography career makes her feel more substantial than she felt when anchored to a traditional home and family. If the period detail rings true, the story that supports it doesn't. Hope's counterculture attentions scatter so widely that she is quick to find distractions after major losses. The pivotal eventsthe discovery of Clay's affair, Clay's request for a divorce, Hope's affairs, her sale of her house, her overnight successcome too fast to be believed. Still, for some baby boomers, this will be a mighty nostalgic piece. Author tour. (July)
Library Journal
Hope and Clay married at an early age due to an unexpected pregnancy. Clay became a successful engineer, Hope a stay-at-home mother of two children. Over the years their interests and beliefs began to diverge. Hope dabbled a bit in the counterculture, and Clay's tolerance of their involvement with the Unitarian Church and alternative elementary school makes her believe that they have a strong marriage. So when Clay tells her he needs a place of his own, her whole world goes topsy turvy. Initially he agrees to give her the house, the Cadillac, and the kids. However, as Hope becomes more enmeshed in her bohemian existence, he takes the children and sues for custody. While well written, this story feels a bit dated. For larger collections.Kimberly Allen, networkMCI Lib., Washington, D.C.
BookList
First-novelist Page illuminates a turbulent period in recent history through the similarly turbulent story of a quirkily charming young woman. It's 1969, and Hope Fairman--wife of Clay, an up-and-comer at Houston Power and Light, and stay-at-home mother of Amber, age nine, and Patrick, three--performs housewifely duties with a counterculture edge as she helps establish an alternative school and guides her family to a new Unitarian church. But her life tumbles out of orbit when Clay leaves for another woman, giving Hope the house, the kids, and even his beloved Cadillac. Hope's attempts to cope--first with finances, then with the loss of her children, finally with life in general--are played against a background of the social movements of the time, from free love to racial strife. Page's skills in telling a story that ranges from funny to wrenching and in creating memorable characters make this a notable literary debut and mark her as a writer to watch.
Kirkus Reviews
A debut novel by a California writer whose short stories have appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere, this tale of a 1960s Houston housewife who comes of age when her husband abandons her feels lamentably dated—though its winsome protagonist and unusual secondary characters provide a certain charm.
Born in Indiana and married young, Hope Fairman has adapted rather well, she thinks, to life as a housewife in suburban Houston in the tumultuous '60s. Her daughter attends Blossom Street Free School, a school for freethinkers that Hope helped found with her Unitarian minister and other friends. Her husband, Clay, though something of a stick-in-the-mud, seems happy in his job at Houston Power and Light. Her three-year-old son obviously enjoys his mother's company. If Hope's life isn't particularly exciting, at least it's comfortable—that is, until Clay abruptly packs his bags and moves out, leaving Hope shell-shocked, virtually unemployable, and saddled with the family's substantial bills. Attempting to cope with the unbelievable news that her husband has fallen in love with one of the Blossom Street School's single moms, devastated when he sues her for custody of the children and wins, Hope retreats to an experimental commune run by her minister, takes up with a Cajun dockworker, befriends a troubled child who once threatened to put out her daughter's eyes, and in general attempts to reconstruct her life along patterns that better suit her (hitherto unacknowledged) interests and needs. In the end, her old love of photography develops into a vocation, she establishes a small home near the water, and her daughter returns to her—all rewards of Hope's determination to regain her self-respect and be happy, no matter what the odds.
Sensitive writing, predictable plot. Perhaps a fresher story will emerge in Page's next book.
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