Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: Due to many positve reviews, I started this novel with high expectations. Unfortunately it left me unsatisfied. Previously I've enjoyed Scott Spencer's books, but this time I never connected with the characters. There was little to no suspense, and the ending was predictable.
Rating: 
Summary: Torn between love, religion, and politics.
Review: Excellent novel about the love affair of a politically-destined Harvard grad Fielding, his girlfriend Sarah that is pulled towards the service of the Catholic Church, and the heartache that is created when the two are pulled in opposite directions. The two are separated only to be brought back together too late in life when they have gone in completely different directions. Its also a great movie.
Rating:
Summary: Will the real martyr please stand up?
Review: Fielding Pierce makes all the true sacrifices in this beautiful story, not Sarah, the feckless girl who wants sainthood for all her calculatedly good works. It is Fielding who is pure gold, who keeps listening to the currents of his grieving heart as he finds his assassinated? girlfriend haunting him as the years go by, no matter where his life takes him or through what trials and temptations. It is Fielding whom you will find that you love and admire when you turn the last page and you will wish that Scott Spenser had seen fit to write more about him, a character you won't soon forget.
Rating:
Summary: extremely intense and passionate saga of love.
Review: i am a big fan of scott spencer, who rises above the cliches of the monotonous post sixties style of writing and brings out the lost languages in his fiction, which i thought we had lost in the 'fashionably fragmented' world of todays literery gangs. he is truly unconventional, who doesnt write monotonous and predictable black/non narrative prose, which has been so abused by most writers in an attempt to sound 'correctly radical'. this book gives you a glimpse of what it is to be confused and very passionately in love. it reveals the deepest and most scary parts of the human psyche. its fascinating. a must read for those confused souls wondering on the streets of metaphors and imges.
Rating:
Summary: Will the real martyr please stand up?
Review: I picked this book up randomly at the book store. What made me buy it was the New York Times Book Review's statement, "Occationally a scene comes across as so elegantly rounded and complete I admit to gasping from sheer pleasure." This kind of reaction from a person who reads books for a living pursuaded me to give it a try. I was not disappointed. Spencer's writing style is so smooth that I found myself aching inside for Fielding Pierce. I'm not going to tell you what happens because that is part of the beauty of the book. You are better off not knowing the details. Just buy the book, sit back, and prepare to be engrossed by woderfully developed characters that transcend the novel. You actually end up seeing them as real people, who you accept with all their faults and gifts. Scott Spencer earned himself a new fan with this novel.
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Book;A Wonderful Writer
Review: I picked this book up randomly at the book store. What made me buy it was the New York Times Book Review's statement, "Occationally a scene comes across as so elegantly rounded and complete I admit to gasping from sheer pleasure." This kind of reaction from a person who reads books for a living pursuaded me to give it a try. I was not disappointed. Spencer's writing style is so smooth that I found myself aching inside for Fielding Pierce. I'm not going to tell you what happens because that is part of the beauty of the book. You are better off not knowing the details. Just buy the book, sit back, and prepare to be engrossed by woderfully developed characters that transcend the novel. You actually end up seeing them as real people, who you accept with all their faults and gifts. Scott Spencer earned himself a new fan with this novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting & unrealistic combination of romance & politics
Review: I so badly wanted to give this novel five stars. As someone who's heavily into political issues (worked on a Congressional campaign, ten year+ issue activist, etc.) and a sucker for a good romance I was hoping that this book would be both realistic and passionate. Frankly, while the story certainly is interesting, it's really not that realistic.The author apparently felt like he needed to create a dichotomy to have conflict between his two characters. So Sarah is the ultra radical and Fielding is the more pragmatic politician type. The problem is, neither character is given realistic scenarios to play out these roles. What ultimately happens to Sarah is, historically, more in line with what happened to radicals in the sixties who set off bombs - not someone who is the target of a bomb. Sarah might have been rescuing Chilean exiles and breaking US law, but that hardly puts her at the top of the FBI's most wanted list. Certainly not in comparison to folks like the Weather Underground which existed at the time. I also wasn't comfortable with the author's presentation of what drove Sarah to do what she did. There's a lot of religious talk that just either made me uncomfortable or just didn't ring true. Having spent quite a bit of time with passionate activists, many of whom do break the law, I just didn't believe that someone would go around saying that any poor downtrodden person could be Jesus. I suspect that the author did this because maybe he just wasn't sure as to what would drive someone to behave like Sarah. Then there's Fielding the politician. Since the book is set in the 70s maybe the author should be given some latitude. Maybe things were different then. But I doubt it. In this day and age of money and politics his vision of running for office seems naive at best. Today it takes no less than a million dollars to win a House seat. Sometimes it takes a lot more. With that money comes obligations to special interests. Much is made at the end of the book when Fielding reads letters from some of his constituents who need help. It almost appears as if the author is trying to compare Fielding with Sarah, as if he is just as much a hero, if not more so, as Sarah. Having lobbied over 50 members of the House and Senate in DC I found this underlying motivation to be naive. Constituent letters are read by staff members and those staff members do the vast majority of the work in doing the helping. A member of Congress wouldn't have time for these letters. The letters a Congressperson would deal with would be those that would further his or her political ambitions. In other words, those that would make good press and PR. In a realistic story Sarah would have continued her work. And yes, she possibly would have been killed. But this would have likely only happened after she was better known publicly for her actions - and a far greater threat to those she was protesting. Maybe then the novel would have focused more on the possible harm Sarah's actions might cause to Fielding's career. In a more realistic story Fielding, if he is as honorable as the author wants us to believe, would have lost his election. Why? Because in order for Fielding to stay true to his idealism he would have had to stand up to the special interests who would demand his support. That's the political reality we live in. You don't get into Congress by being a good boy. You do it by bending yourself to the powers that be. Then there's the background story behind Sarah's death. The US did indeed participate and support the military coup that destroyed the Allende government in Chile. This was an atrocious act and, unfortunately, not the only one committed by the US government in the region. In "Operation Condor," for example, six South American nations had organized assassination programs to kill political dissidents. The US government knew about these killings and there's even some evidence to suggest that we supported them. I mention these points because there's a central truth behind Sarah's actions. What the US did was morally reprehensible. So while Sarah's actions are extreme, one has to ask, when confronted by the facts, why is Sarah is so "radical" for her beliefs? Why aren't those who ignore these things seen as lazy Americans who have utterly failed in their civic responsibility in questioning the actions of their government? Ah, but then there would be no book. Who wants to read something like that? For those interested in finding out more about this background story I recommend the movie "Missing" with Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon or the book "Missing: The Execution of Charles Horman" by Thomas Hauser. Both are far more realistic in their depiction of the US government's actions toward Chile in the 1970s.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting & unrealistic combination of romance & politics
Review: I so badly wanted to give this novel five stars. As someone who's heavily into political issues (worked on a Congressional campaign, ten year+ issue activist, etc.) and a sucker for a good romance I was hoping that this book would be both realistic and passionate. Frankly, while the story certainly is interesting, it's really not that realistic. The author apparently felt like he needed to create a dichotomy to have conflict between his two characters. So Sarah is the ultra radical and Fielding is the more pragmatic politician type. The problem is, neither character is given realistic scenarios to play out these roles. What ultimately happens to Sarah is, historically, more in line with what happened to radicals in the sixties who set off bombs - not someone who is the target of a bomb. Sarah might have been rescuing Chilean exiles and breaking US law, but that hardly puts her at the top of the FBI's most wanted list. Certainly not in comparison to folks like the Weather Underground which existed at the time. I also wasn't comfortable with the author's presentation of what drove Sarah to do what she did. There's a lot of religious talk that just either made me uncomfortable or just didn't ring true. Having spent quite a bit of time with passionate activists, many of whom do break the law, I just didn't believe that someone would go around saying that any poor downtrodden person could be Jesus. I suspect that the author did this because maybe he just wasn't sure as to what would drive someone to behave like Sarah. Then there's Fielding the politician. Since the book is set in the 70s maybe the author should be given some latitude. Maybe things were different then. But I doubt it. In this day and age of money and politics his vision of running for office seems naive at best. Today it takes no less than a million dollars to win a House seat. Sometimes it takes a lot more. With that money comes obligations to special interests. Much is made at the end of the book when Fielding reads letters from some of his constituents who need help. It almost appears as if the author is trying to compare Fielding with Sarah, as if he is just as much a hero, if not more so, as Sarah. Having lobbied over 50 members of the House and Senate in DC I found this underlying motivation to be naive. Constituent letters are read by staff members and those staff members do the vast majority of the work in doing the helping. A member of Congress wouldn't have time for these letters. The letters a Congressperson would deal with would be those that would further his or her political ambitions. In other words, those that would make good press and PR. In a realistic story Sarah would have continued her work. And yes, she possibly would have been killed. But this would have likely only happened after she was better known publicly for her actions - and a far greater threat to those she was protesting. Maybe then the novel would have focused more on the possible harm Sarah's actions might cause to Fielding's career. In a more realistic story Fielding, if he is as honorable as the author wants us to believe, would have lost his election. Why? Because in order for Fielding to stay true to his idealism he would have had to stand up to the special interests who would demand his support. That's the political reality we live in. You don't get into Congress by being a good boy. You do it by bending yourself to the powers that be. Then there's the background story behind Sarah's death. The US did indeed participate and support the military coup that destroyed the Allende government in Chile. This was an atrocious act and, unfortunately, not the only one committed by the US government in the region. In "Operation Condor," for example, six South American nations had organized assassination programs to kill political dissidents. The US government knew about these killings and there's even some evidence to suggest that we supported them. I mention these points because there's a central truth behind Sarah's actions. What the US did was morally reprehensible. So while Sarah's actions are extreme, one has to ask, when confronted by the facts, why is Sarah is so "radical" for her beliefs? Why aren't those who ignore these things seen as lazy Americans who have utterly failed in their civic responsibility in questioning the actions of their government? Ah, but then there would be no book. Who wants to read something like that? For those interested in finding out more about this background story I recommend the movie "Missing" with Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon or the book "Missing: The Execution of Charles Horman" by Thomas Hauser. Both are far more realistic in their depiction of the US government's actions toward Chile in the 1970s.
Rating:
Summary: Not as I expected...
Review: I was disappointed after reading this novel in a day or two. I may have had high expectations, too high before I even began and that could've ruined it for me. This story line was wonderful as every other chapter went from past to present. Fielding and Sarah, a couple living within normal means, are struck with a tragedy...death; while Sarah is helping some Chileans find sanctuary, her car explodes. After her death, Fielding finds a new girlfriend who makes some career connections for him. He finds out his true feelings for this new girlfriend after he keeps seeing Sarah wherever he goes. He sees, or thinks he sees her in a crowd, in the snow, in his dreams. The conclusion brings the truth to light about many things; his girlfriend, his life, and most of all Sarah. I expected this book to add to or move my heart and soul...it did not. It has a overall theme that is no too far fetched. It was worth reading for the experience, but I wasn't moved like I was after reading 'Where the Heart is'.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and Compelling
Review: In this interesting and unconvential novel, Scott Spencer takes us through the experince of Feilding Pierce, a budding politican whose life and career propel toward the fast track, while he is simotaniously haunted by the memory of his deceased lover. As his focus on the past deepens, he begins to speculate on the possibility that her politically-motivated death in a car-bombing was staged, and confront the possibility that she may still be alive. In many ways, Sarah, his activist lost love, is an embodiement of the idealism and radicalism of her times, and a symbol for the path Feilding could have taken. Spencer's narrative, shifting back and forth between events in Feilding's past and present, makes for an effective story telling method, and accurately illustrates how the past is never really very far away from our pysches. The politcal elements of the book are very well-depicted. The love story, at times, borders on being too one-dimensial, however, Spencer manages to create a very real heart at the center of the relationship. This novel is good, very good, but not quite exceptional. WHile Fiedling is very relatable, other primary characters are somewhat difficult to get a handle on, and certain plot elements are a little unclear. However, the novel breathes a certain fresh and unique quality that makes it effective and compelling. Readers with a political bent will be appealed by Feilding's career developments and the conflicting idealogies of Feilding and Sarah's world views and career aspirations. Those looking for a more gripping love story should check out Spencer's earlier novel, "Endless Love".
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