Out of the Blue - Hardcover

Mandel, Sally

3.57

248 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345428900 ISBN 13: 9780345428905

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2000

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At once heart-wrenching and funny, poignant and provocative, here is a rare novel about finding the courage to take a remarkable leap of faith. Smart, funny Anna Bolles, a born athlete and a dynamic teacher, figures God decided to have the last laugh when her life was tragically and irrevocably changed five years ago. Since then she has kept herself firmly grounded in the present with the door marked "future" shut.

Anna's days are filled with the vibrancy of summer in New York City where she takes joy in the details, the sensual assault of an air-conditioned museum and a perfectly baked muffin. She relishes her role as an observer to the dramas played out around her--from the adolescent courtships of her private school students to the turbulent love affairs of friends and colleagues. Yet Anna never dares to open her heart, except to the father who has drifted from her and the mother who sustains her, until the one thing she didn't think could happen becomes a twist of fate that may just set her free. Until Joe Malone.

Joe Malone, pilot, businessman, amateur photographer, is a man who has everything except happiness. Though he's notorious for his short attention span, he sees in Anna a world of possibilities. Maybe Joe, a man who has only been skimming the surface of life, has finally found a perfect place to land. He thinks he wants a life with Anna no matter what and seems willing to risk everything to be with her. But can he trust himself enough to give their deepest dreams the chance to flourish?

Through laughter and tears, from the depths of heartbreak to the pinnacle of joy, Sally Mandell never fails to remind readers of the things that matter most in life. Now she has written her most dazzling novel yet--a very special story about two unique people whose love comes from seemingly out of the blue.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Author:

1. What compels an author to write a novel about someone with MS?

2. To readers of Out of the Blue, bless your hearts one and all:

It always interests me to track down the original impulse that propels me into writing a novel. Often I don't know until after the fact. But always there's some pivotal event--maybe something overheard at a cocktail party or something that's happened to a friend of a friend. At this time, I may not be aware of any particular reaction other that a little prick of interest, but somehow that moment creeps into my brain and hangs around there until I'm forced to deal with it.

I had to go back of few years to track down the impetus for tackling Out of the Blue. We were on a family vacation in the Bahamas. Among the guests was a young woman in a wheelchair. She'd traveled all the way from San Francisco, changing planes and staying overnight a couple of times before arriving at the island hotel. I was struck by her matter-of-fact, even humorous description of her misadventures. As the week wore on, I watched her negotiate the narrow boardwalks in her chair--the faster she spun along, the brighter the glow on her face. Her malady, which turned out to be MS, was dismissed with a wave of the hand. I knew nothing about the disease at that point. We enjoyed our occasional conversations and parted company congenially at the end of the week.

A few months later, I had become so crippled by a mysterious orthopedic affliction that I could no longer walk a single block. I would up having a double-hip replacement and spent twelve weeks on a walker, then crutches, re-learning how to walk. What an education! In New York City, it was the Winter of the Eighteen Blizzards. Trying to negotiate three-foot snow banks and icy sidewalks was some challenge. But in the process I learned a whole lot about what it's like to be disabled--how invisible you are, how people clip your cane as they pass much too close, how nostalgic you feel about the activities you can never again enjoy. For me, this was only a temporary state of affairs. I was going to be back on my feet in short order, hiking up mountains and playing tennis. I felt inexpressibly fortunate. And suddenly that valiant girl from the Bahamas started hollering at me from her hangout in my brain and I began writing a new book.

There was resistance from people who thought a story about a woman with MS was sure to be a downer and that nobody would want to read it. But by this time, I had begun to attend symposiums about MS, and the people I met there did not feel sorry for themselves and they engendered admiration, not pity. I felt that if I wrote Anna's story from the inside, in the first person, she could make herself understood in a way that was interesting, funny and maybe even inspiring. I leave it to you to decide if I pulled it off.

From the Back Cover:

"Funny, sad, tender, and triumphant, Out of the Blue is the poignant story of a courageous woman coming to terms with who she is and who she wants to be."
--KRISTIN HANNAH
Bestselling author of On Mystic Lake

"Out of the Blue is a novel of soaring spirit, steadfast love, and the willingness to reach for dreams--even when they are close to home. Sally Mandel has written a wonderful book, hilarious and devastating at the same time, filled with hope and faith."
--LUANNE RICE
Bestselling author of Cloud Nine

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