A Big Storm Knocked It Over

I am a huge fan of Laurie Colwin's writing, so I am baffled by the reviewers who didn't enjoy this book as much as I did. To me, her writing is sophisticated yet very comfortable. I can identify most with the main character in this particular book of hers as I also married a bit later in life and am trying to have a child despite being a little long in the tooth. The longings Jane Louise has for the domestic bliss that other people in her life seem to have so easily are all too familiar. This book will not hit you over the head with a message, and it does meander ... which is just like life for most of us. And I for one sometimes enjoy a book that doesn't leave me with a headache. Reading is so much like eating - balancing what's good for you with satisfying cravings for those things that aren't - and for me, Laurie Colwin's books are like hot tea with milk and sugar on a cold afternoon. Grown up, but sweet and comforting - they always hit the spot. And I still find myself in disbelief that there will be no more books by this great writer.

Love is a subject that has been tackled by everyone who ever grabbed a pen and decided to write. Some have been accurate in their depictions, but i find that i read a lot about love and don't quite connect with the emotions or with the characters. With this book, Laurie Colwin wiped me off my feet. I can totally put myself in the shoes of Jane Louise, who wants desperately to make everything OK for her husband, who cannot understand how someone so lovely could have been treated badly by others, who gets outraged at the thought that her beloved suffered at some point in his life. This is one of the key corners of love, and i have yet to find other authors that put their finger right there. This was an awesome love story. I watched a movie on PBS called "Ask me Again" some 12 years ago, and i have not been able to forget it. What do you know? Laurie Colwin wrote the script. Thank you for leaving us with such terrific books and movies.

I am a HUGE Laurie Colwin fan and this is by far her best book. It sucks you in. A great book to read when you're feeling blue.

I'm three-quarters of the way through this book and I wish it was a lot longer. I'm smiling almost the whole time I'm reading it. I wish Laurie Colwin was still alive because I'd like to read many more of her books

I am not normally given to overstatement. I can, however, think of no other work I have encountered yet that can rival Laurie Colwin's "A Big Wind Knocked It Over" for reinforcing the balance between idiosyncracy and pure happiness that comes from a union, whether it be one of marriage or of friendship. Colwin's prose, while spare, rings with images and emotional relevance. I, as well as everyone else I have discussed this work with, have found myself, the smallest details of my personality, echoed in her words. The characters, without exception, are wonderfully flawed and human, drawn with an attention to detail that brings life to their written existences, and transcend the reader-text barrier to make them as present as a coworker or a friend. Anything more I could say would throw this review into the realm of the hyperbolic, so I will close by recommending this work to any and all readers. It stands on my bookshelf next to the works of Shakespeare and the "Maus" graphic novels of Art Spiegelman. All three I consider depictions of life without equal in the literary world.