Mattie Ryder is a marvelously funny, well-intentioned, religious, sarcastic, tender, angry, and broke recently divorced mother of two young children. Then she finds a small rubber blue shoe-the kind you might get from a gumball machine-and a few other trifles that were left years ago in her deceased father's car. They seem to hold the secrets to her messy upbringing, and as she and her brother follow these clues to uncover the mystery of their past, she begins to open her heart to her difficult, brittle mother and the father she thought she knew. And with that acceptance comes an opening up to the possibilities of romantic love. In a disarming blend of everyday life and the sublime, of reverence and irreverence, and of humor and grace, Anne Lamott speaks directly to our most closely held concerns, bringing comfort to anyone -all of us-whose family life can feel overwhelming and uncontainable. Lamott's formidable storytelling gifts have gained her a large and passionate following, and anybody who has experienced the delightful humor and the canny understanding of her previous work will be similarly charmed by Blue Shoe.
One of the few progressive Christian writers with a national voice, Anne Lamott's work (Bird by Bird, Operating Instructions) ranges from the meditative to the hilarious. Blue Shoe falls somewhere in the middle of that range. A slow, thoughtful novel, rooted in the domestic routines of child-raising, Blue Shoe follows the newly separated Mattie Ryder as she moves back into her childhood home, recently vacated by her elderly mother, and undertakes the renovation of her entire life. Her best friend Angela has left the San Francisco Bay area to move in with her new lover, Julie. Mattie's ex-husband, Nicky, has settled so quickly into a steady relationship with a young woman named Lee that it is clear they were involved during his marriage to Mattie. Nicky and Mattie's two children are displaying signs of emotional disturbance (Lamott is at her best in describing the quietly weird behavior of young children). And to add to the mix, Mattie's mother is falling into a senile dementia characterized by pleading phone calls and wacky assertions of independence. All Mattie wants is a little more money, a decent boyfriend, and for her philandering father to rise from his grave and solve all her problems. Is that so much to ask? Some of the action in this novel could have been compressed, and the major subplot involving Mattie's father fails to excite, but the strengths of Blue Shoe--humor, unflinching characterization, and keen observation--more than compensate for its weaknesses. --Regina Marler
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.0 / 5.0
surprised by the negative reviews!:
I've not read anything else by Anne Lamott, but I plan to. I bought "Blue Shoe" on a whim and didn't expect it to be a light, easy, fluffy read. To my surprise, I've read it again since. No, the characters aren't perfect, yes, they fail. But they are so very human. Certainly, sometimes we want to read fiction which will provide us with characters so good, so lacking in imperfection, that we can try to aspire to their perfect heights. And sometimes, conversely, we want to read about real, flawed people,... more info
The Truth Shall Set Your Free But First It Will Make You Miserable:
The S.F. Bay area's Anne Lamott is well known through her fiction (Joe Jones, Crooked Little Heart, All New People, etc.) and non-fiction (Bird by Bird, Traveling Mercies, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith). Both adored and distrusted for her outspoken faith and her hilarious candor about messy issues like sexual mores, abortion, divorce, Lamott's writings demonstrate that life is a bundle of contradictions for people like her, like me, like all of us who on the way but not there yet. A Guggenheim... more info
A bit of reality in the insanity:
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. At times, I found it a bit dark and depressing, but in it I saw a bit of everyone I know embedded in its characters. As always, Ms Lamott's writing is hypnotic and poetic in a funny and sometimes melancholy way.
Not a Total Waste of Time:
This was my first Anne Lamott read. What people say about starting with the first books and working your way up to the most recent, is often true. Anne Lamott is obviously a very talented writer, with a wonderful dry sense of humar and excellent descriptions of setting. However, something tells me that her earlier books are even better.
To begin, what I loved about this book was the dry humor (ie: feeling like pouring Draino over the pet iguana, etc) and the lovely descriptions. I also enjoyed the... more info
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