Customer Rating: 
Summary: I got suckered by the reviews
Comment: I wish I hadn't wasted my time with this book. It offered nothing new to a subject that's been written to death. Yes, extramarital affairs cause pain and have no happy resolution. No surprise there for anyone who has ever read Dear Abby or watched soap operas. At least Dear Abby used to make me laugh once in a while--this book was repetitive and depressing. The editor should have cut it by half. Some of the characters were intended to be annoying, but the most annoying was the heroine. The author's detached point of view made it impossible to have empathy for Polly, who is a holdover from the 1950s searching for a backbone. She was apparently asleep through the 1960s and 70s. Anne Tyler does this subject so much better.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A wonder of a book
Comment: I first read Laurie Colwin's _Family Happiness_, years ago, and it just gets better.Polly Solo-Miller Demarest is an outwardly conventional upper-middle class Manhattan wife and mother.She has looks, brains, social graces, money, and a secret life.She unexpectedly fell in love with the dashing Lincoln Bennett, a semi-monastic, and very good artist.Her inner conflicts drive this beautifully written, engaging book.This is similar, in theme, to Anne Tyler's _Back When We Were Grownups_, but Colwin's characters are far more interesting and personally appealing, and there is more resolution.This book is for anyone who has a complicated, hard to define inner life.
Customer Rating:
Summary: You will laugh and cry
Comment: This is a wonderful book. I'm always sad to go the Laurie Colwin section in my library and know there will be nothing new, but knowing this book is usually there makes me feel a little better.Polly's conflict is age old. In the middle of a seemingly wonderful life, the ache she feels is really touching. I think the search for her real self and the chaos it creates to the people around her is so funny and sad at the same time. It askes the question: Who am I really?
I love Polly's family and the way she relates to each member. As just their Polly, she is ultimate diplomat. The toll this task takes, I think, I something many women can relate to. I know I can. And while I'm not sure an affair is the answer, it fills the emptiness and helps her to realize that she is a person with needs too.
I love all of Laurie Colwin's books. This one, though, is my favorite.
Customer Rating:
Summary: small correction
Comment: Laurie Colwin died of a heart attack, not cancer, which I think about whenever I prepare on of her butter-loaded recipes from the Home Cooking books. But I make them anyway, and read her books over and over again. She clearly had the wisdom, open-mindedness, and generosity of spirit it takes to be a great cook as well as a great writer. There's no one else like her.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This book touched my heart, I went through the same thing!!
Comment: This book touched me like no other book, I went through the same expierence eleven years ago, that was the most painful, enduring task I have ever gone through.
