Lily King

This is a quintessential winter read: A soft waiting, a quiet longing, with each page falls pensive moments like silent flakes floating down, melting into the paper. Within this collection of ten stories, there are swift bursts of elation that fall away just as quickly leaving sadness and a longing for more. While each story is engaging and each seems steeped in themes of love and desire—among others—my favorites are these:

When I’m Dordogne is about a desire to belong and finding that thing (or person) that answers this question: “‘What makes your heart sing” (74)?: “I don't know how other people do it, not stay with the girl whose ankle socks made your stomach flip at age fourteen, whose wet hair smells like your past—the girl who was with you the very moment you were introduced to happiness” (95).

Hotel Seattle is about unfulfilled desires: While completely different tones, this story reminds me of a scene from SATC with Samantha and Richard and Smith: “When you grow up Catholic (mass, CCD, youth camps) with six brothers, a megalomaniac father, and a mother who is on her knees in prayer whenever you try to find her, it’s hard to scrape through all the voodoo layers to recognize you’re gay” (151).

The Man at the Door is so beautifully complicated and about the beautiful, terrible dichotomy of desire: “And with them came a feeling, a presentiment, that she would eventually destroy this good life, for wasn’t her need to write like her parents’ need to drink? A form of escape, a way to detach? And, like the alcohol, it weakened and often angered her, left her yearning for the kind of rare and extraordinary ability she’d never have” (222).
… (lisätietoja)

I have read most Lily King's work. She is an excellent writer. Having recently read the first novels of 2 of my favorite authors and found them just okay, I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed this book. It is the story of Rosie a young au pair in Paris and her dealings with the French family she works for. There is the couple plus their 3 children. King does a great job of getting into everyone's head. Her language is wonderful and the way she weaves the story in the present and into back stories of the characters is excellent.The book was 250 pages but it seemed longer because the descriptions were so dense. The timeframe is probably the late 70's which is sometimes a challenge given the cultural changes since then. Normally when I like an author I usually don't recommend her/his first book but this one is a good place to start with King. A strong recommend.… (lisätietoja)

It is the story of a woman English teacher and her son. It is alternately told from both their perspectives. She was a single parent. We meet her while she is teaching at an exclusive New England private school. She lives with her son for whom she has been a single parent. The story is told alternately from both their perspectives. At the beginning we learn she has a fear that somehow she has killed her son in their sleeep. She is teaching Tess of the Deubervilles to her class and it turns out she identifies quite strongly with Tess as her son was born out of wedlock. Later we learn her pregnancy was the result of rape. The story is one of her personal growth and that of her son, Peter as they cope first with her marriage and then with her finally explaining to Peter his origins. Through the course of the narrative we see them both freed from the constraints that past placed on them.… (lisätietoja)