Sarah Conley |
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Author:
Ellen Gilchrist
By Back Bay Books
Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
Label: Back Bay Books
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: 1998-08-17
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Studio: Back Bay Books |
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Professional woman finds love, romance, & true fulfillment, 1999-04-04
In Sarah Conley, Ellen Gilchrist introduces a completely new set of characters. The title character is a successful professional woman who has escaped from the suffocating throes of the South of her youth and now lives in New York City. However, returning home to Nashville, Tennessee for the funeral of her best friend brings back memories and longings that she thought she had long ago buried. Reacquainting with a former lover opens a new vista that she had not anticipated any more than she anticipated that her roots would beckon her to return. A sojourn in Paris gives the novel an interesting sparkle and romantic feeling that only Paris can give. There Sarah finds that her personal work and private love affair must come together somehow, and we are convinced that she will find happiness in the end. Ellen Gilchrist has given us a new heroine--a modern woman after all our hearts who is talented, beautiful, and yet mature and loving. It's not often that we read about women in their 40's or 50's having successful careers and love affairs and being able to assimilate both into their lives as well as Sarah Conley learns to do. She is what so many women today would love to be, and it is fulfilling--and just plain fun--to read about her and to put ourselves in her place, if only for the space of a good read. Let's hope that Ms. Gilchrist intends to continue Sarah's story!
Read Like An Outline, Not A Novel..., 1999-06-16
This could have been a good story, if it just had some detail! Reading it was kind of like listening to someone describe a book they've read: "This woman gets a call from her childhood best friend's husband, who tells her the friend is dying and wants to see her. She flies out to their home, the friend tells her to take care of her husband for her, and she dies. Then the woman and the dead friend's husband realize that they're in love". And that's about all there is in the book. There's maybe five pages devoted to how the two women met as teenagers, and half a page given to mentioning that, oh, by the way, Sarah has a son who's been estranged from her since he was a child. I wanted to know so much more! The characters are never developed at all. No one grieves for even a paragraph after the poor childhood friend's untimely death (which happens conveniently in the time it takes Sarah to arrive back at her former and future lover's home after her first visit with poor Eugenie in decades) - and the dead woman's husband declares his love for Sarah before the body is even cold. It gave me very little sympathy for either Sarah or Jack, and the lack of plot just made me yawn. "Sarah Conley" was an interesting premise that was never realized. The elements were there. The story wasn't.
It lost me after Chapter 2., 1999-04-23
I'm not even halfway through the book, and I've been mourning the loss of the strong, interesting and rather daunting 14-year-old protagonist. The early friendship between Sarah and Eugenie evoked wonderful portent of things to come; then -- bam! -- we're fast-forwarded into the present day, and Sarah has become shallow, dull and predictable. I'm not sure I care what happens to her, but because I love Paris, I'll read on. I'm curious to see if the City of Lights can brighten Sarah's lack of luster.
what has happened to a fine novelist?, 1999-06-18
I am 2/3 through this book and doubt that I can finish it. I simply don't care. The plot is trite, the dialog isn't really dialog at all but something more akin to school essays, and Gilchrist seems to keep forgetting who the characters are. How can the daughter be a successful decorator and a whiney neurotic who doesn't seem she would be able to even hold a job above a menial level at the same time? Is Robert honest or is he not? Every time a character is reintroduced, it seems he or she has changed into someone else. What has happened to Gilchrist? This is really poor stuff.
A Big Disappointment, 1999-10-08
Having read everything that Ellen Gilchrist has ever written, I was totally disappointed in the complete and utter lacklustre and laziness of this novel. Having got off to an relatively intriguing start, the plot proceeded to descend into soap-opera, with one-dimensional characters, constant self-congratulatory, dull, middle class observations and I hope not autobiographical caricatured experiences of Paris. Yadda yadda yadda. Read some Alice Hoffman, Ms Gilchrist and see what your peers are up to...
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