Is Emilia the wicked stepmother incarnate? Passionately in love with her husband, Emilia has a secret, guilty loathing for her precocious little stepson, William - a forty-year-old in a five-year-old's body, whom she picks up from nursery every Wednesday afternoon. He is lactose intolerant, so she feeds him dairy products; he mustn't get cold, but she pushes him - accidentally - into a pond in Central Park. How can she forgive William for living, when her own cherished child has gone? "Love and Other Impossible Pursuits" is ...
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Is Emilia the wicked stepmother incarnate? Passionately in love with her husband, Emilia has a secret, guilty loathing for her precocious little stepson, William - a forty-year-old in a five-year-old's body, whom she picks up from nursery every Wednesday afternoon. He is lactose intolerant, so she feeds him dairy products; he mustn't get cold, but she pushes him - accidentally - into a pond in Central Park. How can she forgive William for living, when her own cherished child has gone? "Love and Other Impossible Pursuits" is funny, candid and raw, a humorous and emotional novel about family in today's fractured society. Set among high-achieving Manhattanites, it announces the arrival of an exciting new American voice.
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Add this copy of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits to cart. $6.48, very good condition, Sold by Aardvark Books Ltd rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Bucknell, HEREFORDSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2006 by Doubleday.
Add this copy of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits to cart. $13.08, fair condition, Sold by Bookmans rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Tucson, AZ, UNITED STATES, published 2006 by Anchor / Random House.
Oftentimes second books are a tad disappointing when you've fallen hard for the first book. Love and Other Impossible Pursuits is not that kind of follow up book. It is as engaging as first of Waldman's I had read before it -- the kind that makes you read and re-read it, look up the author, and other things by the author and then read them in the hopes that you will experience that same literary high. (Technically this is not Waldman's second book though I think of it as. She also has a mommy detective series which I read after reading her book "Daughter's Keeper". The detective series is a different kind of writing -- fun and fluffy and not what one is looking for following the beautifully heavy read of "Daughter's Keeper" or any one of her witty articles in varied magazines.) Love and Other Impossible Pursuits is insightful into a number of themes within a fantastic narrative: relationships, loss of a child, and step-parenting. It reads so authentic that at times the reader cringes for the main character's behavior but doesn't love her any less for it. You won't regret picking it up unless you need to get other things done.
