Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Keyes, M. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Amity Public Library | FIC KEYES | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Salem Main Library | Keyes, M. | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
At twenty-nine, fun-loving, good-natured Claire has everything she ever wanted: a husband she adores, a great apartment, a good job. Then, on the day she gives birth to her first baby, James visits her in the recovery room to inform her that he's leaving her. And he hasn't even had the decency to leave her for someone glamorous; just the frumpy woman who lives in the apartment downstairs...
Claire is left with a beautiful newborn daughter, a broken heart, and a body that she can hardly bear to look at in the mirror. Until quite recently especially when wearing a green maternity jumper that was the only thing left that fit her--she felt she bore an uncomfortable resemblance to a popular summer fruit.)
So, in the absence of any better offers, Claire decides to go home to her family in Dublin. To her gorgeous man-eating sister Helen, her soap-watching mother, her bewildered father. And there, sheltered by the love of an (albeit quirky) family, she gets better.
A lot better.
In fact, so much better that when James slithers back into her life, he's in for a bit of a surprise.
In this very funny, very fresh, very wise novel, Marian Keyes delivers an unforgettable debut--and a heroine so irresistible that she feels like a new best friend.
Author Notes
Marian Keyes was born in the West of Ireland on September 10, 1963. She was brought up in Dublin, and then she spent her twenties in London. She earned her law degree from Dublin University and then travelled to London where she worked in an administrative job in an accounts office. Keyes developed a drinking problem, and after a failed suicide attempt, entered a rehabilitation program.
Keyes began writing short stories four months before she stopped drinking, in 1993, and when she left rehab, she sent them to a publisher. Included with her stories was a letter saying that she had also begun a novel, which she hadn't. The publisher liked the short stories so much that they wrote back and asked for the novel, and Keyes wrote the first four chapters of her novel Watermelon in a week, and was offered a three-book contract. Watermelon was published in 1995.
Keyes gave up her job in 1996 to become a full time writer. Her books are published in 35 countries worldwide and have been translated into several different languages, such as Hebrew and Japanese. In 2009, She won the Irish Book Award for her fiction novel, This Charming Man.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Claire Webster, heroine of this breezy Irish bestseller, thinks hubby James is the man of her dreams until he ditches her for an older woman (Claire herself is 29) two hours after their daughter is born. Mother and child repair to Dublin, where there's hope of solace and sustenance in the bosom of an eccentric family, while Claire downsizes from watermelon to wisp and struggles over the hurdles of blues and booze. When she attracts a handsome young lover and considers dumping the suddenly repentant James, it's clear a happy ending's in sight. Or is it? There are a few surprises and plenty of sassy girltalk in this slick if sometimes silly take on what it's like to be female. Much of the hilarity generated by Claire's funky familyairhead sisters who squabble over clothes and men, a mother who'd rather watch soap operas than cook, a father perpetually bewildered by the women in his lifewears thin, but readers will identify with Claire's flaws, applaud her irreverent wit and rejoice at her triumphant recovery. Like the fruit it's named for, this overlong novel is short on nutrition but long on refreshment. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A grand first novel by Irish writer Keyes is a hilarious treatise on loves roller coaster. Both elated and exhausted after giving birth to a daughter, the 29-year-old Claire is shocked senseless when her husband James comes to the London hospital not to celebrate, but instead to break the news that he's leaving her for their dowdy downstairs neighbor. The stunned Claire, with new baby in tow, and feeling as big as a summer melon, hightails it back to her family in Dublin to sort out her life. Wandering around her childhood home in her mother's old nightgowns, a vodka bottle in one hand and the bawling Kate in the other, Claire tries to banish images of the frolicking James and his ``other woman.'' Her two younger sisters prove to be a comfortsweet Anna, a hippie drug-dealer, loans Claire money for booze, and haughty Helen deigns to buy it for her. And drunken anguish does have its rewards, for in no time Claire sheds her extra weight, thanks to a steady liquid diet and nights spent on the family rowing machine fantasizing Jamess ruin. But it is only when Gorgeous Adam appears on the scene that Claire begins to recover a sense of purpose. A college friend of Helen's, Adam exemplifies perfect manhood--and helpfully takes a liking to her, too. But just as things begin crackling between them, James shows up, oh-so- generously ready to forgive Claire for driving him into the arms of the other woman. Torn between the comforts of her former life in London and a new, heartening sense of self-worth and self-sufficiencynot to mention the Gorgeous AdamClaire finds herself hard put to make a decision. A candid, irresistibly funny debut and perfect summertime read.
Booklist Review
It could be a maudlin melodrama: on the day almost-30-year-old Claire delivers daughter Kate into the world, her accountant husband James announces he's leaving--and moving in with the rather ordinary (and somewhat older) married woman from downstairs. But narrator Claire chattily confides this disturbing development to readers and then describes her classic response: she leaves London to join her family (mother, father, two sisters) in Dublin, taking time to consider the pros and cons of her three-year marriage (and five-year relationship). Watermelon (named for the fruit Claire feels she resembled in the later stages of pregnancy) laughs along with its narrator on her homeward journey and in her search for who she is if she is not James' wife. The intimacy and humor of this first novel by an attorney/accountant who's been writing short stories for several years made it a best-seller in Ireland and the U.K. Avon plans a solid promotional effort, which should generate requests. --Mary Carroll
Library Journal Review
Claire Webster's got it all-a perfect marriage to a handsome husband who provides well and now a darling baby girl-until the morning after she gives birth, when her husband, James, informs her that he's having an affair with their downstairs neighbor and deserts her and his child. Claire flies back to Dublin and the dubious security of her wacky family to sort out her life. A too-handsome hunk of younger man named Adam-whose motives in pursuing her must be suspect, mustn't they?-enlivens this story of survival in the face of crushing blows to one's self-esteem. Hilarious interior monolog, with Claire's refereeing the warring segments of her obstreperous psyche, puts this first novel on the Gen-X "must-read" list. It will appeal to mainstream, women's fiction, and romance fans, too. Highly recommended.Jo Manning, Univ. of Miami Lib., Coral Gables, FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.