Helpful Score: 3
Lifestyles is Jackie Calhoun's first book and, for those of you like me who have read her others, ironically it might be her best. There is much more character and plot development than you typically find in a Calhoun book. Her central figures are Kate and Pat. Kate arrives at the family lake home running from a failed marriage of 24 years. Somehow, without her noticing, her husband has fallen in love with a much younger woman. Kate doesn't know what else to do but get away. At the lake she meets Pat, who is in the midst of a crumbling relationship of her own. They start out as good friends who enjoy sailing, swimming and just talking about things. This book covers a time span of almost two years, so you get a real chance to see things develop. Kate is trying to define her relationships with a number of people - her grown children, her estranged brother who returns to her life just in time to discover he's dying of AIDS, the mortician who wants to marry her, her dead parents, but most of all Pat. You get a good, but little less clear picture of Pat who is also trying to figure out where she went wrong in her relationship with Gail, but more importantly is trying to understand the pull she is feeling towards Kate. It's a well developed story and gives some very real glimpses of what just plain every day life is like when everything seems to be falling apart around you. If you like Calhoun's work, you'll really like this one.
