A finalist for the 2014 Kirkus Award, this was a short and easy read about an interesting elderly feminist. Here's the Kirkus Review:
Unexpected celebrity and long-absent
family members distract a heroically cantankerous 1960s-era activist in
the summer of 2009 as she reluctantly confronts the challenges of age.
Morton (Breakable You,
2006, etc.) returns to the world of writers with Florence Gordon, a
feisty literary lioness of the U.S. feminist movement. At 75, she has a
just-published book that’s languishing, and despite years away from the
limelight, she's embarked on a memoir only to learn that her longtime
editor is retiring. No matter: She treasures her solitude and “having
fun trying to make the sentences come right.” Yet fame befalls her in
the form of a top critic’s review of her book in the New York Times.
Family matters also intrude. Her ex-husband, a vicious burned-out
writer, demands that she use her contacts to get him a job. Her son and
his wife are back in New York after years in Seattle. Their daughter,
Emily, helps Florence with research and almost warms up the “gloriously
difficult woman.” Then the matriarch’s health begins to nag her with
strange symptoms. While Florence dominates the book, “each person is the
center of a world,” as Emily thinks, and Morton brings each member of
the small Gordon clan to life at a time when there is suddenly much to
discover about their world. He’s also strewn the novel with references
to books and writers and the craft itself, which is appropriate for the
somewhat rarefied setting—Manhattan’s historically liberal, bookish
Upper West Side, where Morton’s characters often dwell—and a treat for
anyone keen on literary fiction.
Always a pleasure to read for his
well-drawn characters, quiet insight and dialogue that crackles with
wit, Morton here raises his own bar in all three areas. He also joins a
sadly small club of male writers who have created memorable heroines.
This was a really good find!
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