Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
With insight and candor, Yglesias recounts five years in the lives of two yuppie couples, to whom parenthood occasions typical tribulations and discouraging self-assessments. Byron's birth exacerbates the problems between Diane and Peter Hummel (she's a Yale-educated corporate lawyer, he's a wealthy fundraiser for the arts). While she foolishly tries to be super-mom, wife and professional, she also puts pressure on Byron to excel, attempting to enroll him in an elite school and forcing him to play the violin. Peter withdraws from them both after Byron's presence activates long-dormant memories of his icily aloof mother. Investment counselor Eric Gold, obsessed by the humiliation of his father's business failures, frantically pushes himself to produce substantial earnings for his wife Nina and their son Luke. Her imagined inadequacies torment Nina, especially when she cannot soothe Luke, whose colic makes him infuriatingly uncontrollable. This is a vivid description of how rearing a first child can conjure up neurotic fears, which must be resolved before parents can nurture their offspring. Yglesias has abandoned the cynicism that infused Hot Properties; this new novel is deeply felt and thought-provoking. $75,000 ad/promo; Doubleday Book Club main selection; Literary Guild featured alternate. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
``The joys of Motherhood. Are they all one great lie?'' In carefully orchestrated, parallel stories of two New York couples and their sons from birth through age five, Yglesias explores this and other contemporary parenting issues. The story moves carefully between the Golds and the Hummels in a sort of literary counterpoint that becomes more staccato in the second half of the book. Educated professionals with good incomes, both sets of parents have excellent intentions but are crippled by emotional ``baggage'': they are adult children (``only children'') themselves. The children are unusually bright, but their development, like their parents', is impeded by complex psychological issues. Yglesias writes with insight, showing how true adulthood comes with self-awareness, pain, and understanding. Definitely recommended.Ellen R. Cohen, Rockville, Md. (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
The newest from Yglesias (Hot Properties, 1986) may be one the baby boomers will flock to--a passionate tale of thirty something yuppies in search of the perfect infant. Peter and Diane Hummel--he's a fund-raiser for the arts (with a private income, of course), she's a high-powered lawyer--have finally decided to have a baby. Or at least she has decided by secretly dispensing with birth control; Peter is a ""reluctant father."" And when little Byron arrives in their lower Fifth Avenue apartment, Diane sees the perfect baby, while Peter flees to the arms of his mistress, Rachel. Meanwhile, Eric and Nina Gold have also had a blessed event (she's vaguely thinking about fashion design; he's an up-and-coming Wall St. whiz), and it's name is Luke. Unlike Byron, Luke seems at first a lemon, an Edsel: his colicky ways drive both parents nearly insane and a later bout with constipation (described in excruciating but somehow riveting detail) turns them into little dictators. The next five years seem a perfect microcosm of the experiences of many moneyed New York parents today; Yglesias has a genius for portraying the small scenes of domestic baby life in the 80's: nanny-stealing in Washington Square Park, the fight to get into the really good private schools, the one-upmanship at cocktail parties, etc. Diane rejects a partnership to stay home full-time with Bryon (and then becomes bored); Peter's typically self-involved response to fatherhood is to begin a search for the adult who had molested him as a child. While Byron is merely a sweet kid, Luke turns out to be a prodigy, sought after by fancy elementary schools--and Eric and Nina hang in there, despite Eric's failure to turn his father-in-law's millions into Wall St. El Dorado. In the end, the couples (who know each other slightly) make a lot of compromises--and keep on keep on keeping on. High-class soap opera, but with a superlative cast--as Yglesias turns an eagle eye on the delights and pitfalls of parenting in the 80's. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
