Review by New York Times Review
ONE of the better moments in Christina Schwarz's third novel occurs halfway through, when a man named Kaiser asks if it's "more important to be happy or to be good." In "So Long at the Fair," the tussle between happiness and goodness - defined by slippery people like Kaiser quite simply as passion versus fidelity - moves through the lives of two generations of Wisconsin couples. Hot and heavy e-mail messages, secret liaisons and false promises all take their toll. This kind of "happiness" is not, it seems, all it's cracked up to be. That isn't news. Marital misery - and the explosive consequences of adultery - has always been the stuff of drama. But although Schwarz diligently explores this theme, showing how indiscretions in the past influence choices made in the present, "So Long at the Fair" has all the urgency of a soggy romance. Moving between 1963 and the present day, Schwarz introduces a cast of characters in Madison and the small town of Winnesha, 30 miles away. The 1960s story, a slim and simplistic depiction of sexual betrayal and revenge, is set against a more complex recent narrative. In this second story, Ginny, a landscape architect, quietly yearns for a child while her feckless husband, Jon, is having an affair with a coworker, a single woman called Freddi. As in her first novel, "Drowning Ruth," Schwarz shows a knack for evoking the landscape of the upper Midwest, with its meadows and prairies of bee balm and Indian paintbrush. And her characters convincingly seek out local treats like bratwurst, funnel cakes and root beer floats while driving to summer music festivals. But when it comes to writing about relationships, Schwarz's prose turns saccharine. "I can almost sense you here beside me on the bed," one lover e-mails to another, "your warm largeness, your flipperlike feet, your brown-sugar eyes. You are the bittersweet chocolate to which I press my tongue." This odd bit of banter evokes an equally odd response: "He closed his eyes, allowed himself to swell with the thought of her. She resembled a fox. ... She was like sugar, like nicotine; the more he got, the more he wanted." Although the two stories intersect in minor ways - Ginny and Jon are the children of characters we see in 1963 - they don't inform each other in any significant or interesting fashion. The motivation for the events of the 1963 revenge plot is mostly unexplored, and its characters remain one-dimensional. This back story may have been intended to add tension to the main narrative, but its abundance of flashbacks and subplots is distracting, slowing rather than speeding the pace. Schwarz's readers soon become bogged down in what feels like a long slog through treacherous terrain. For a short novel, "So Long at the Fair" is just that - so, so long. Danielle Trussoni, the author of "Falling Through the Earth: A Memoir," is writing a novel.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
From the outside, Jon and Ginny's marriage is solid. But Jon must make a decision: should he end his affair or his marriage? He never intended to cheat on his wife; the affair just happened. The attention from a young, beautiful woman and Ginny's apprehension about starting a family made the affair so easy. What he doesn't realize is that Ginny is getting closer to realizing the truth. The long work hours and his strange attachment to his computer are making her suspicious. Over the course of one day, Schwarz follows Jon and Ginny, expertly describing the complexity of their marriage, revealing the thought process behind Jon's adultery, and exploring the way in which Ginny rationalizes Jon's behavior. It is an honest and balanced portrayal of a marriage in trouble. However, Oprah author Schwarz muddies their story with a flashback sequence about their parents that ultimately has no bearing on Jon and Ginny's relationship. Read and recommend this for Schwarz's skill in deciphering relationships, and overlook the flashback cliché.--Kubisz, Carolyn Copyright 2008 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Fans of Schwarz's Oprah Book Club selection Drowning Ruth are likely to be disappointed by this convoluted novel about loyalty, love and obsession. Jon and Ginny Kepilkowski, high school sweethearts who were pushed into marriage by a freak accident, come to a crossroads when Jon, after an argument with Ginny, decamps to spend the day with mistress Freddi. Ginny, meanwhile, meets clients for her landscaping business, one of whom, Walter Fleischer, is part of a long-ago family conflict that is weakly developed in flashbacks to the summer of 1963, where Jon and Ginny's parents are embroiled in a perplexing revenge plot against Walter over lust gone wrong. Back in the present, Ginny comes close to discovering Jon's infidelity while Jon and Freddi are pursued by Ethan, whose clunkily rendered obsession with Freddi leads to a violent, if poorly presaged, climax. When the novel finally reveals its long-foreshadowed secrets, their import remains frustratingly unclear. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Verdict: If the thirty-something major characters were younger, this melodrama could be an entertaining YA work. As it stand, the latest from the author of the best-selling Drowning Ruth is rather predictable and definitely an optional purchase. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 3/1/08.] Background: As in her first novel, Schwarz takes us to her native Wisconsin, where she weaves a tale with the usual themes of love, betrayal, adultery, and revenge. Handsome Jon struggles to decide whether to end an affair with a coworker or end his marriage to Ginny, his childhood sweetheart. Jon's mother tells him that his marriage is doomed because she believes he married Ginny out of guilt. (We learn in a flashback that Jon was in a car accident that permanently disfigured Ginny.) There are a few short scenes from 1963 interspersed in the contemporary story that tell of an event that parallels current events. Unfortunately, these scenes are a bit too short to tie the past successfully to the present.--Lisa Rohrbaugh, New Middletown, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Following one crucial day in a marriage tottering on the brink, Schwarz (All Is Vanity, 2002, etc.) shows the fragility, complexity and danger inherent in love. In a small Wisconsin community in 1963, Walter has sex with Hattie that she claims was rape but he claims was consensual. Hattie's pregnant friend Marie wants her husband, rising golf star Bud, to defend Hattie's honor. But Bud believes Walter's version so Marie--who has her own motives for revenge--uses Hattie's former boyfriend, bookish Clark, to turn Bud against Walter, son of Bud's major backer. Skip ahead 40 years to Madison, Wis. Jon, the son of Bud and Marie, has been having an affair with Freddi, his co-worker at an ad agency, but he still loves his landscape architect wife Ginny, Hattie and Clark's daughter. Jon and Ginny became high school sweethearts after Ginny was injured in an accident for which Jon has always felt responsible but which Ginny has always considered her own fault. With occasional splices back to 1963, the novel covers the crucial Saturday when Jon is deciding whether to stay with Ginny or leave their long marriage for Freddi. As a step toward reconciliation, he plans to take Ginny to a music festival they've attended in the past, but Ginny has mixed up her dates and made other, business appointments. Frustrated and hurt, Jon ends up at the festival with Freddi, who carries her own emotional baggage, including a stalker who thinks Freddi is his girlfriend. Ginny's business appointment is with Walter, who readers quickly suspect may be her real father instead of overprotective, doting Clark. Misconnections and misunderstandings mount as the characters--not just Jon and Ginny, but their parents, their friends and acquaintances--make choices drawing them closer and closer to inevitable disaster. While the manufactured quality of the 1963 story line is a minor problem, Schwarz's portrait of Jon and Ginny's loving but damaged marriage is unsparing and heartbreaking. A true American tragedy, full of love as well as despair. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
