Object Lessons Author:Anna Quindlen "A SMALL TRIUMPH . . . Elaborate and playful . . . Honest and deeply felt . . . Here is the Quindlen wit, the sharp eye for details of class and manners, the ardent reading of domestic lives." — --The New York Times"Set in the 1960s, OBJECT LESSONS concerns three generations of a rich Irish clan who live in an established inner suburb of New York... more » City. . . . The patriarch, John Scanlan, is a lively figure. . . . It is [the] daughter Maggie who is trying desperately to master some object lessons. . . . Quindlen is at her best writing about the dislocations of growing up, the blows a child does not see coming."
--Time"Anna Quindlen's first novel is about an experience that is the same for everyone and different for us all: the time when we suddenly see our family with an outsider's eye and begin the separation that marks our growing up. . . . Quindlen knows that all the things we ever will be can be found in some forgotten fragment of family."
--The Washington Post Book WorldA New York Times Notable Book
Interesting family dynamic. Very intense characters and growing pains for each generation. A long summer and all that happens, life, love, happiness, sadness and death. Such is life in all it's glory. Very interesting book/
This was a quick read and a pleasant story. Though most of the reviews I read before I got the book talked about the lessons of growing up learned by the child in the book, it was the combination of the child's experience with the parents' realization that we're always growing up that I found intriguing.
Also a great book. Quindlen is a great author, and this book is no exception. It is told through the eye of a 13 year old just on the brink of becoming an adult. This book will remind you of what is was to still have the wonder of a child but see the world with adult eyes.
Set in the 1960's, "Object Lessons" concerns three generations of a rich Irish clan who live in an established inner suburb of New York City....The patriarch, John Scanlan, is a lively figure....One of his sons, Tom, rebels by marrying a handsome, lower-class Italian girl. It is their daughter Maggie who is trying desperately to master some object lessons during her 12 year old summer.....Quindlen is at her best writing about the dislocations of growing up, the blows a child does not see coming.
