- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Canada / Fiction (April 1 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0060185295
- ISBN-13: 978-0060185299
- Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 15.9 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 653 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #367,453 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
No one can accuse Gaffney of shying away from mortality. Against the genteel backdrop of Wake House, a Maryland home for the elderly, Caddie Winger, a music teacher, endures a string of losses the summer she turns 33. In a way, it comes as no surprise, since most of her friends are nearly half a century older than she is. Caddie has always lived with her determinedly wacky grandmother, Nana, who moves into Wake House after she breaks a leg while working on one of her embarrassing lawn sculptures. Soon, Caddie is spending all her time at the small convalescent home and growing especially close to Thea, a firecracker who convinces Caddie to smoke pot and dance in the rain. Despite the fun they have together, the sober realities of old age are never far off, and Caddie's affair with a man her own age-disappearing slick-o Christopher-doesn't do much to cheer her up. The novel has its larkier moments, especially in the spirited, pitch-perfect conversations between Caddie and Nana and the sniping among Nana's fellow Wake House residents. But mostly Caddie suffers and struggles as Nana's ditziness looks more like dementia, money grows scarce, and she is plagued by crippling self-doubt. The redemptive romance, with 30-something Wake House resident Henry Magill, convalescing from a sky-diving accident that killed his fiancée, echoes the core love story in Gaffney's last novel, Flight Lessons Here, too, a damaged hero offers a profound attractiveness the reader recognizes ages ahead of the heroine. Caddie is endearing, and while some fans will cherish her fealty to her sorrows, others may feel more bummed than uplifted.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Gaffney, author of The Saving Graces (1999), offers a tale about a woman facing changes in her quiet life. At 32, Caddie Winger is perfectly happy to be living with her grandmother, Frances, who raised her, and giving music lessons. But after Frances takes a fall and breaks her leg, she insists on moving to Wake House, a convalescent home. There, Frances meets a diverse group of older folks: a pair of sisters, two women who used to be married to the same man (at different times), and a cranky but lovable curmudgeon. She also meets Magill, a young man whose sense of balance has been thrown off by a tragic skydiving accident. Meanwhile, Caddie gradually adjusts to living alone, then, when she meets sexy Christopher, the director of the Creative Animal Therapy School, she is genuinely surprised by his interest in her. Slightly predictable and somewhat slow at first, Gaffney's novel picks up the pace once Caddie gets involved with Christopher, and by the end, the reader is thoroughly drawn into Caddie's world. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
The first Caddie Winger ever heard of Wake House was when she was helping her grandmother get her drawers on over the cast on her leg. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
The first Caddie Winger ever heard of Wake House was when she was helping her grandmother get her drawers on over the cast on her leg. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lovely characters,
By
This review is from: The Goodbye Summer (Hardcover)
I enjoyed this book less because of the actual storyline and more because of the characters. Gaffney is really good at painting detailed and believable characters and, although Caddie's life experience is very different from mine, I felt like I could really relate to her struggles and fears. I fell in love with Thea, Cornell and Magill, and even crazy Nana. As another reviewer mentioned, it was also refreshing to have so many older characters take centre stage in a story that was, actually, about a young woman. I think this is definitely worth reading -- maybe not the most entertaining book but it certainly makes you think and reflect on life and relationships and how much we can learn from those who have already experienced the joys and sorrows of life.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very slow moving...........,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Goodbye Summer (Hardcover)
Really found this book tough to get into. Borrowed it from the library and was glad of that after struggling to get through it. I found the first half really slow and boring. The second half does get quite a bit more interesting and I even found myself becoming quite attched to Thea - probably because she was the most interesting character in the book.Definetly not the best Paricia Gaffney book.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A lovely read with fun and interesting "elder" characters!,
By Judith Schonhoff "Judy" (Somerville, MA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Goodbye Summer (Hardcover)
This book was such a nice read. The main character is Caddie, a 32 year old music teacher who has always lived with her grandmother (since Caddie's mother died when Caddie was very young). Caddie's grandmother decides to go live at the local pseudo nursing home while she heals a broken leg. The home is called Wake House and the inhabitants all are quite distinctive! This story is written through Caddie's eyes. Since she is no longer living with her grandmother, she starts to get out more and eventually falls in love. In addition, she visits often with the Wake House folks and gets to learn a lot about them as she write their bios for a Wake House project. There are not many books that have so many "elder" characters written with such flair! You want to know more about them and their sometimes boring, sometimes exciting, but always REAL experiences. Just a nice, feel good book that will make you cry and laugh. I can't wait to read another by this author!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
