Pearlie Cook is a woman living with her husband and a four-year-old son in a small house in the Sunset district of San Francisco. She lives simply until she faces an unexpected visitor from the past. Suddenly, her marriage is shaken by its roots, and she is forced into making some radical decisions about her life.

Having read and loved Andrew Sean Greer's [The Confessions of Max Tivoli], I came into this book with high expectations. I found myself floundering through the first half of this book, being confused as to what was going on. The action moved between five main characters, but not as smoothly as I would have wanted. I proceeded slowly. Then suddenly, about two-thirds of the way through the book, I was pulled deeply into the story and swept up by its lyrical writing.

Of note is the fact that certain important traits of the characters were not revealed until later in the book. Those revelations (no spoilers here!) fit into the story in an interesting way, particularly in relation the time setting (1953). This jarred me into taking more notice of what the author was trying to say.

The end of the story was both beautiful and emotional. I had to stop along the way, though, to jot down some memorable lines. I even caught myself deciding exactly how I wanted the story to end before reaching its actual conclusion. I did appreciate how the author constructed the ending, reaching into many years later to see the outcome of decisions made a long time ago. ( )

What I liked about this book is that it offered some interesting surprises along the way, in terms of letting you know who the characters are. What I did not like about this book is that it went on a little too long, which is odd to say considering the novel wasn't that long to begin with. The end simply dragged on too much for my taste, too much of the narrator pondering the nature of love and marriage. ( )

Love story set at the beginning of wwii between a boy and a girl. The boy goes away to war and has a white male lover. The lover comes back and spends six months convincing Pearlie that Holland needs to be with him (Buzz), Poignant, filled with rich real characters. I would recommend this book and may be reading it again for book club. ( )

I gave this book an extra half-point for effort in introducing a broad number of issues in post-WW II society. Discrimination was a fact of life and the book covers the topic on many fronts including racial, sexual orientation, McCarthyism (political), and pacifism (conscientious objectors). It also shows that a marriage can hide many secrets and need not be perfect to be in many way, a good marriage.

I didn't give the book a higher rating because the prose doesn't flow well, there are some simply awful metaphors, and in an effort to keep the books secrets unexposed, the reader can feel lost at times.

I work in a library, and when the book "The Great Starvation Experiment" came across my desk, I decided to read it since I felt Greer had certainly used this as one reference for his novel's background. It turned out to be an interesting read and indeed, elaborated one of the novel's more interesting and less known historical themes. ( )

Read this book with a notebook and pen handy! There were so many phrases I wanted to capture, but the story moved along so quickly, I never wanted to put the book down to record them. Excellent, quick read that offers a lot to think about when it is over. ( )