Something Blue - Softcover

Ann Hood

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553404199 ISBN 13: 9780553404197

Publisher: Bantam Books, 1992

Synopsis

College friends Lucy and Katherine reunite as adults—and build a new friendship as changed women

Katherine shows up at Lucy’s Manhattan doorstep having run away from the marriage altar. Lucy isn’t thrilled to see her former sorority sister—her own life as a children’s book illustrator is complicated enough, especially as she may be falling out of love with her boyfriend. Along with Lucy’s oddball best friend, Julia, the women tackle the complicated challenge of being young, lost, and in search of life in New York City.

Something Blue is a heartfelt but never sentimental modern classic, capturing three women on the verge of the future, still figuring out the past, and trying to solve the present all at once. A novel that addresses friendship, ambition, and love head on, Something Blue and its three heroines head in surprising directions in their search for meaning.

About this title

About the Author:

Ann Hood was born in West Warwick, Rhode Island. She is the author of the bestselling novels The Knitting Circle, The Red Thread, and The Obituary Writer. Her memoir, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief, was named one of the top ten nonfiction books of 2008 by Entertainment Weekly and was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Her other novels include Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine, Waiting to Vanish, Three-Legged Horse, Something Blue, Places to Stay the Night, The Properties of Water, and Ruby. She has also written a memoir, Do Not Go Gentle: My Search for Miracles in a Cynical Time; a book on the craft of writing, Creating Character Emotions; and a collection of short stories, An Ornithologist’s Guide to Life. Her essays and short stories have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic Monthly, Tin House, Ploughshares, and the Paris Review. Hood has won awards for the best American spiritual writing, travel writing, and food writing; the Paul Bowles Prize for Short Fiction; and two Pushcart Prizes. She now lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with her husband and their children.

From Publishers Weekly:

Hood's ( Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine ) breezy and absorbing fourth novel takes on a perennially popular subject, the friendships of moderately struggling young women in New York City. Lucy's career as an illustrator of children's books is on the verge of coming together; she's only unhappy that her boyfriend, a dancer just about ready to throw in the towel, is not equally successful. By contrast, Lucy's inveterately restless chum Julia (who moves from sublet to sublet, pretends to hail from Milan--not Brooklyn--and sleeps only with oddballs and foreigners) falls unexpectedly in love with one man and one apartment. And Lucy's old roommate Katherine, who has left her intended at the altar in Connecticut but can't seem to shed her prim, cookie-baking persona, arrives in the city as Lucy's somewhat unwelcome houseguest, trailing her unhappy past as a sorority girl. Over the course of a year, the three have affairs and endure breakups, agonize about the direction of their lives, and both doubt and reaffirm their sometimes difficult three-way camaraderie. Anchored in the contemporary by references to brand names, restaurants and TV shows, Something Blue offers a faithful and enjoyable group portrait that is at the same time facile, as Hood ties up all loose ends in the effort to launch her heroines with conventional brio.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0553404199
• ISBN 13: 9780553404197
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 239