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Summary: Just a lovely little book
Review: I'm normally not a fan of short-stories turned to novels, but this book works surprisingly well. It's really more of an episodic novel, because in reality, most of these taleswould not be as meaningful if not strung together. Interesting, fate-infused stories about very average happenings...birth, death, illness, family life, weddings...told with subtly and a complete lack of preciousness. I can't wait to read his next work!
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Summary: Elegant
Review: Justin Cronin understands human emotion about as well as it can be understood, and he has an uncanny way of reducing it to its essence. How can such a small book span the emotional life of two generations with such impact? He is a word master of the highest degree. Other reviews have told the details; they are all true, but one must read Mary and O'Neil to understand the talent of the author.
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Summary: Wonderful characters, breathtaking prose: read this book
Review: Justin Cronin's book is nothing short of breathtaking. All of the characters are deeply imagined; they are loveable and flawed people -- real people -- and Cronin portrays their moments of quiet heroism with great compassion. The letter Arthur must write to his almost-mistress Dora, Kay's decision to accept her husband's philandering, O'Neil's unwavering loyalty to his dying sister: each story illuminates an important choice in a character's life. And the prose is just beautiful. The book is filled with great lines you'll want to underline. I loved this book, plain and simple. This is a writer to watch.
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Summary: A Wonderful, Emotionally Satisfying Work
Review: Mary and O'Neil was certainly a surprise for me. I thought it would be a nice collection of connected short stories, but it is so much more than that. The stories work more like a novel than a collection and Cronin has done marvelous things with these stories. They follow two people, O'Neil, who is nineteen when we first meet him, and Mary, the woman he eventually marries. Each story us about an emotionally pivotal experience that has ramifications for the rest of their lives, ramifications which surface in each of the following stories. The stories are wonderfully written and affecting. Each story could have been the springboard for a fully developed novel. Cronin fits so much in these stories in a terrifically effortless and smooth manner. I highly recommend this one.
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Summary: The best I've read this year (so far)
Review: Ordinarily, I hate books of the "Novel in Stories" variety. I usually find them to be a confused jumble of pieces without any elastic to hold them together. I admit that I had low expectations of this work when I started it due to this prejudice. What a pleasant surprise! Other reviewers have mentioned the beauty of the prose, so I will skip a description of it. Suffice to say that it is not only beautiful, but clever. If you happen to be a writer, you will find yourself WISHING that you could condense the essence of being into phrases like Cronin's. The weaving of the stories is extraordinary: how many times have you read about a character and wondered what his/her parents were like, or what his wife was like before she entered the plot at their first meeting? Here you get that depth of information, not only through the strength of the writing but also through the structure and selection of the moments Cronin chooses to reveal. I'm not sure when the last time a book moved me to tears was, but this was one that did.
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Summary: hands down, one of the best books i've read in recent years
Review: This is a beautiful book. Amazing writing. Mesmerizing in its emotional honesty. Wonderful in its simplicity. Just perfect.
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Summary: Great, Great, Great . . .
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in years. I've recommended it to virtually every literate human being I know and they've all agreed -- it's just wonderful. I agree with the reviewer whose only problem with the book was that it had to end. I'd also recommend his new book, The Summer Guest.
Rating:
Summary: Great, Great, Great . . .
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in years. I've recommended it to virtually every literate human being I know and they've all agreed -- it's just wonderful. I agree with the reviewer whose only problem with the book was that it had to end. I'd also recommend his new book, The Summer Guest.
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Summary: Magnificent debut--the best I've read in years
Review: This is the Cronin's debut, but it feels like a classic from the first page. Readers meet the title couple, Mary and O'Neil, in a series of stories which chronicle episodes from their lives, and can be read as a novel or as a collection of short pieces. The real satisfaction is Cronin's exquisite prose: his stories find their power in the subtle revelations of the characters' emotional lives. There are passages on almost every page that had me in awe of this man's talent, and I was most pleasantly surprised by the overwhelming sense of discovery I felt with this book--remember the first time you found an author who immediately became a favorite, whose writing you savored, and whom you couldn't wait to share with all your friends? As I read Mary and O'Neil, I was reminded of the feeling I had when I first found the works of J.D. Salinger, and later, Anne Tyler and John Updike...think back to discovering your own favorites and that excitement that you felt as you turned every page, knowing that you'd found something important, not just to you, but in the larger scheme of things. If Mary and O'Neil is any indication, Justin Cronin is destined for greatness. This first collection/novel is among the most promising debuts I've seen in years.
Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: When I spied this book on the library shelf of new fiction I was amazed at the title as my given name is Mary O'Neil! The cover promised a good read and it certainly did not disapppoint. Sometimes when into a book one says that true life is never like that - however, the deaths of the parents in the first chapter and the subsequent death of O'Neil's sister are entirely plausible having known of a family that has endured such tragedy. Cronin writes so realistically that one wanted the book to never end. Hope others enjoy it as much as I did!
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