This is a favorite author but this book was just too dated for me. Infidelity and abuse was the accepted norm for the husbands with the wives accepting this as completely normal. After all, men just can't help themselves. (sigh) 1 1/2 stars 311 I loved Anne McCaffrey's Sci-fantasy books but enjoyed it when she wrote contemporary fiction as well. 311 The Year of the Lucy
McCaffrey, Anne
a love story, from one of the best authors in the world, it was a fiction story in modern times, a total divergent from the science fiction that she was known for. 311 I remember reading this story and thought, I like it better when Ms. McCaffrey writes sci-fi. I'm not as fond of the romances. This one wasn't something I liked so much. I think it's because I was young and idealistic. The middle age crisis scared me. What scared me more was how Mirelle lost herself as a wife and mother. It made me question, why would a woman ever want to marry and have kids? This was one of the books which convinced me getting married is worse than death for a woman. 311 I have thoroughly read and enjoyed all on Anne McCaffrey's Pern series. Her The Year of the Lucy is quite different. Her character, Mirelle, is a loving wife & mother with baggage of her past attached. It was a good read.
I'm sorry, I don't give good reviews. 311
I thought that I had read this before, but it turns out that I hadn't, so it was a very nice surprise to me.
Ironically, it was set in 1961, the year I was born, and it was very much of those times in the behaviours and mores of the people written about.
I'm not big into romance, and this was presented as such but, personally, I felt it more a kind of coming of age, in it's own way.
But I have to say this story surprised me, not really so much with the infidelity, and domestic violence being a part of it, as that's something that, though frowned on now, and talked about freely, is still a part of too many women's lives, even 60 years later, unfortunately.
But, despite these, I saw in the characters, and plotlines, the same deft care, and attention to detail in the story, that I had learned to expect years ago from any of the fantasy and SciFi that Anne wrote so very well - though her writing fiction of this kind shouldn't have surprised me, really!
As a mother myself, I had a lot of sympathy for Mirelle, especially with the situation with her mother-in - law (I was very lucky with mine, thank heavens), and understood that clash of conflicting needs and wants that she had to juggle with in order to keep the peace in her family.
I'm just very grateful that I had a husband who encouraged me always to be whatever I wanted to be, and hang the housework, and am totally grateful to have been born in a generation that had those choices - I guess Mirelle, bin her own way, was lucky to have the support of friends who knew what she needed to be whole - and they certainly helped her to obtain it. 311 This book ends up romanticizing an abusive relationship 311 This is the one McCaffrey book that I didn't own. I didn't even know it existed until I came across it in the San Francisco library. It is one of her few straight fiction novels. Set in New England, it features a middle-aged artist who faces a crisis in her marriage. Just re-read it. Much more apt to a mother, than it was when I read it as a single girl. Somehow, I didn't realize it was set in 1961 the first time I read it. 311 Mirelle Martin is a wife and mother trying to balance her domestic life with her creative life as a sculptress. She also has to assert herself with her domineering mother-in-law who is upset that her son married the illegitimate daughter of an opera singer and a portrait painter.
The Lucy is a sculpture of her deceased friend, Lucy, who encouraged Mirelle to develop her artistic talent. Mirelle becomes a stronger person as she looks beyond her roles of wife and mother during an eventful year. Influenced by some new friends, including an attractive pianist, she becomes more involved with others in her Delaware community. She also carves out time for herself to work with clay.
Occasionally, the book which set in 1961 and written in 1986, felt a little dated. But overall, it held my interest. 311 Two things off the bat: this is not sci-fi/fantasy, no matter what people are shelving this as; and this is very, very of its time, both in its problems and just the general tone. There's marital abuse and a firm expectation that men and women will exist in their own spheres. The women wait at the door after work, the men cheat, and so on.
In that way, though, it's exactly what I expected from a contemporary McCaffrey romance. Even though her characters are well developed and the plot is engaging, there's always this expectation that 'men will be men' or 'women will be women' even if this is subverted slightly. It's frustrating at the best of times, and in a contemporary story (at the time of publication) it's even more so as the abuse gets hand waved away. Mirelle's husband straight up excuses his physical abuse as her '[driving me] to hurt [her] physically' because she's a bit withdrawn.
Also, McCaffrey always has a moment when describing her main woman character by ascribing one of her physical traits to a minority group/European country and implying that it's ugly. (In Mirelle's case it's her 'prominent' and 'Hungarian' cheekbones.)
Despite all that, I really enjoyed it. I like McCaffrey's characters, who are always deeper than their flaws (though not necessarily likeable as people), and the story improved dramatically after the first half when they started to overcome their 'of the time' ideals. I'd recommend it to anyone looking to read more McCaffrey but are put off by her focus on SSF, or for fans of stories like A Streetcar Named Desire. 311
Mirelle Martin finds herself increasingly discouraged by marital turmoil, depleted self-esteem, and a propensity to neglect her artistic talent. Mirelle loves her husband, Steve, but his intense, volatile personality exhausts her, as do his jealous, sometimes violent, tirades. Mirelle stoically endures these outbursts, although the caustic criticism she customarily receives from Steve's overbearing mother wears her down. The elder Mrs. Martin scorns Mirelle largely because she is the illegitimate daughter of a famous singer and the Hungarian painter Lajos Neagu. To placate her mother-in-law, Mirelle conceals her provocative heritage by refusing to seek widespread public attention for her sculptures. Such subservience always outraged her friend Lucy, who, before she died, exhorted Mirelle to be more assertive. Fortunately, the void Lucy left is suddenly filled by concert pianist James Howell, a lonely man who coaxes Mirelle to self-awareness, then falls in love with her. McCaffrey, best known for her science fiction fantasy , depicts Mirelle's predicament with sensitivity and credibility, and she perceptively delineates this troubled artist's creative temperament. The Year of the Lucy