Family Happiness

I am not sure what I am missing by reading the other reviews of this book, but this one one of the most disappointing purchases I have made in a long time. I got about halfway through this book and had to give up.

I first read Laurie Colwin's _Family Happiness_, years ago, and it just gets better.Polly Solo-Miller Demarest is an outwardly conventional upper-middle class Manhattan wife and mother.She has looks, brains, social graces, money, and a secret life.She unexpectedly fell in love with the dashing Lincoln Bennett, a semi-monastic, and very good artist.Her inner conflicts drive this beautifully written, engaging book.This is similar, in theme, to Anne Tyler's _Back When We Were Grownups_, but Colwin's characters are far more interesting and personally appealing, and there is more resolution.This book is for anyone who has a complicated, hard to define inner life.

This is a wonderful book. I'm always sad to go the Laurie Colwin section in my library and know there will be nothing new, but knowing this book is usually there makes me feel a little better.Polly's conflict is age old. In the middle of a seemingly wonderful life, the ache she feels is really touching. I think the search for her real self and the chaos it creates to the people around her is so funny and sad at the same time. It askes the question: Who am I really?I love Polly's family and the way she relates to each member. As just their Polly, she is ultimate diplomat. The toll this task takes, I think, I something many women can relate to. I know I can. And while I'm not sure an affair is the answer, it fills the emptiness and helps her to realize that she is a person with needs too.I love all of Laurie Colwin's books. This one, though, is my favorite.

Laurie Colwin died of a heart attack, not cancer, which I think about whenever I prepare on of her butter-loaded recipes from the Home Cooking books. But I make them anyway, and read her books over and over again. She clearly had the wisdom, open-mindedness, and generosity of spirit it takes to be a great cook as well as a great writer. There's no one else like her.

This book touched me like no other book, I went through the same expierence eleven years ago, that was the most painful, enduring task I have ever gone through.

Laurie Colwin's urban pastorals have delighted city folk for years; they're witty, intelligent, touching, and happy. Colwin's loss to cancer was a loss for American letters.