A Fortunate Age
Am slowly reading my way through A Fortunate Age by Joanna Smith Rakoff. Am not even certain where I found the suggestion for this book, but I ordered it oline from ABE books, along with Maybe Next Year (a childhood favourite by Amy Hess), Bachelor Girl by Betsy Israel and Girl Walks Into a Bar by Strawberry Saroyan. (All fall into my New York obsession, where I must read fiction that is set in New York, examines the experience of living in New York or being culturally shaped by New York, which in itself is an examination of what it is like to grow up in a highly urbanised environment where you scrabble for space amongst skyscrapers).
Anyway, I am enjoying the book and picked the resemblance to the structure of The Women, by Mary McCarthy before I read some online reviews, which examined it in greater detail. Perhaps that is why The Slap works so well-covering a period time/experience shared by a group ofpeople and visiting each of these individuals for a narrative overview. It's a feature I like in The Corrections and Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen, and makes those 2 more (popular) books more enjoyable than his earlier novel about the quakes (see, I can't even name it, obviously less fun).
It's sharp, and even though it picks up the story 4 years after the group of friends have graduated from Oberlin College, in Ohio and are now making their way largely based in Brooklyn, it provides a glimpse of how they were shaped in a Clinton era liberal arts environment (eating at food co-ops, sharing a Victorian house adjacent to the art museum). I could even imagine the characters, before that, being classmates of Mallory and Alex Keaton, from Family Ties (they themselves the Ohio based offspring of Peace Corps era parents). As the characters recognise, they were safe and bored in the innocent late 90s.
Anyway, I am enjoying the book and picked the resemblance to the structure of The Women, by Mary McCarthy before I read some online reviews, which examined it in greater detail. Perhaps that is why The Slap works so well-covering a period time/experience shared by a group ofpeople and visiting each of these individuals for a narrative overview. It's a feature I like in The Corrections and Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen, and makes those 2 more (popular) books more enjoyable than his earlier novel about the quakes (see, I can't even name it, obviously less fun).
It's sharp, and even though it picks up the story 4 years after the group of friends have graduated from Oberlin College, in Ohio and are now making their way largely based in Brooklyn, it provides a glimpse of how they were shaped in a Clinton era liberal arts environment (eating at food co-ops, sharing a Victorian house adjacent to the art museum). I could even imagine the characters, before that, being classmates of Mallory and Alex Keaton, from Family Ties (they themselves the Ohio based offspring of Peace Corps era parents). As the characters recognise, they were safe and bored in the innocent late 90s.
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