OBJECT LESSONS

by Anna Quindlen ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1991

An affecting, if slightly predictable, first novel about a young girl's coming of age from popular New York Times columnist Quindlen (the nonfiction collection Living Out Loud, 1988). The time is a summer in the early 1960's, and the place is Kenwood, a small town just outside of the Bronx. For Maggie Scanlan, it is the summer of big changes--the fields behind her house are chopped up to make way for a subdivision; her powerful grandfather, John Scanlan, has a stroke and is hospitalized; her mother, Connie, gets pregnant again and learns to drive a car; and, finally, Maggie herself changes. She celebrates her 13th birthday, officially becoming a teen-ager. But, as it turns out, these are only the obvious changes. What really stirs Maggie are the things nobody talks about: the shifting of power in the Scanlan family, her mother's preoccupation with another man, her cousin Monica's pregnancy, and the example and advice of a neighbor, Helen Malone. All of this seems inextricably linked, somehow, to the building going on behind Maggie's house, so that even years later, whenever she smells ""the peculiar odor of new construction, of pine planking and plastic plumbing pipes,"" she is taken back to this troubling, mystifying and, ultimately, liberating summer. The Scanlan family is a richly complicated group--from grandpa, who had made a fortune manufacturing religious paraphernalia, to Maggie's father, the black sheep of the family, stubbornly independent. Quindlen never lets these characters sink into stereotype, and while her writing here seems somewhat less charged than in her columns, her talent for revealing the small, hard truths of family life is plenty apparent. Not a new recipe, but the best kind of home cooking, simply served, with plenty to chew on.

Pub Date: April 1, 1991

ISBN: 0449001016

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1991

Categories: FICTION