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A Life In Men: A Novel (2014)

by Gina Frangello(Favorite Author)

3.57 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1616201630 (ISBN13: 9781616201630)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Algonquin Books

review 1: This book is intensely deep and often hard to follow. But once you settle in and get the characters straight and learn their stories you're captive. The tale involves two girls that go on a trip to Greece after one is diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, Cystic Fibrosis. From there the story introduces many key characters who's lives all eventually intertwine or connect. Mary, suffering from CF, is the main character yet her best friend, Nicole, is ever present in this story. A Life In Men is deep and sad yet touching and free. Not a story for the faint of heart and certainly a literary investment.
review 2: This book traces a woman's life through her experience with men: her lovers, her estranged father, her brother, her friends, her inbetweens. These fr... moreiendships are also filtered through her experience as someone who suffers from cystic fibrosis, the death of her childhood bestfriend, and a night of tragedy spent years ago with that childhood bestfriend. The way it does this, however, seems to conflate womanhood itself with friendship, sickness, and tragedy. And while one could argue that the overwhelming relationship of the text, that with the protagonist's deceased best friend, creates the overarching bubble of atomosphere and so in some way must also be considered a novel about female friendship, I'm not one hundred percent sure this book passes the Bechdel test. It feels like I'm being unfair here. The book's relationships all bloom naturally and elegantly, each character fully drawn and realistic while still having enough flavor to be dramatically interesting. The constantly shifting locale allows a setting as plot device that is satisfying, even when the novel's MANY coincidences are not. It was a fast read, not in terms of length but in terms of I never felt bored or lost in the text, it was always moving forward. That is, until the September 11th coda that felt both tacky and out of place brought me to a dead stop for the last twenty or so pages. less

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