Writers & Lovers
Lily King
Pan Macmillan
Review: Karen Watkins
Casey Peabody arrives in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan.
Her mother has just died and she recently broke up with someone.
She is broke, receiving final notices from debt collectors and renting a shed that smells of black mould and gasoline.
This former child golf prodigy takes a job in a restaurant called Iris, waiting tables for the Harvard elite.
In between shifts she is trying to write a book about Cuba, a process that started six years before.
Cuba is where her mother lived as a girl, and at age 17 chose to stay there for love and the revolution.
Meanwhile, aged 31, Casey feels like she’s part of a wedding factory as invitations to friends’ nuptials are forwarded from Spain, Oregon and Albuquerque.
The story plods along until Casey meets two very different men and must choose between them. This messes with her mind even more.
Casey’s story is one of finding balance while negotiating the conflicting demands of art, life and love.
It’s also a story of getting through the grieving process. But it’s not a sad one, and at times it is funny and quirky.
My main reservation is that Writers and Lovers starts off slowly and the pace never really picks up.
Readers of Lily King’s previous four books may think differently. She is the award winning author of Euphoria, which was a New York Times bestseller.
She lives in Maine, America.