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In the Meantime
On a hot summer's day in 1931, three five-year-olds meet on a dusty street in a small Midwestern town, beginning a friendship that will last all their lives. Kathryn, the oldest in an ever-expanding family, is bright and earnest, and thinks she wants to become a nurse. Starling is an only child with an absent father. He doesn't yet know that he is of mixed race - he doesn't even know what that means - all he knows is that when he grows up he will be a star. Luke doesn't know what he wants, except for his older brother not to be dead.
Together they experience the joys and pains of childhood, although the anxieties of puberty and awakening sexuality nearly destroy their three-way friendship forever. Reaching adulthood after World War II, they follow their dreams to New York City, where they discover that not even Manhattan is free of racism and prejudice.
Through the years of their ever-entwined adult lives some dreams are realized while others grow dim, but one constant their bond of friendship. At the book's end, some seventy years after it began, only one of them remains to tell the story of their lives, and of what happened...in the meantime.
Together they experience the joys and pains of childhood, although the anxieties of puberty and awakening sexuality nearly destroy their three-way friendship forever. Reaching adulthood after World War II, they follow their dreams to New York City, where they discover that not even Manhattan is free of racism and prejudice.
Through the years of their ever-entwined adult lives some dreams are realized while others grow dim, but one constant their bond of friendship. At the book's end, some seventy years after it began, only one of them remains to tell the story of their lives, and of what happened...in the meantime.
170 pages, Hardcover
First published September 28, 2007
16 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
About the author
Robin Lippincott
18 books17 followersRobin’s latest book is BLUE TERRITORY: A MEDITATION ON THE LIFE AND ART OF JOAN MITCHELL. His collaboration with Julia Watts, RUFUS + SYD, a novel for young adults, will be published in spring 2016. Robin is also the author of the novels IN THE MEANTIME, OUR ARCADIA, and MR. DALLOWAY, as well as the short story collection, THE ‘I’ REJECTED. Robin’s fiction has received nominations for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Pushcart Prize, the American Library Association Roundtable Award, the Independent Book Award, and the Lambda Literary Award. For ten years he reviewed mostly art and photography books for "The New York Times Book Review." His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in over thirty journals, including "The Paris Review," "Fence," "Bloom," "American Short Fiction," "Memorious," "The Literary Review," "Provincetown Arts," "The Louisville Review," and "The Bloomsbury Review," and his fiction has been anthologized in M2M: NEW LITERARY FICTION, REBEL YELL, and REBEL YELL 2. He has held many fellowships at Yaddo, as well as a fellowship at the MacDowell Colony. Though born and raised in the south, he has lived in the Boston area for many years. He teaches in the low residency MFA Program at Spalding University.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
December 3, 2009
Summary: Kathryn, Luke, and Starling met at the ages of 5 and 6 in the early 1930s; and became inseparable from that moment on. From elementary to early high school they attend the same schools and are constantly at one of their houses, usually Starling’s. But as they get older, so do the cruelties and insults from people that don’t understand them or their friendship, and so Starling and his family move across town, away from the hostility expressed by some of the more aggressive high school bullies. They continue their friendship regardless of the distance that is, until something happens between Luke and Starling that causes a separation between the two and Kathryn is left in the middle, and left to mend the boys’ friendship. We follow the three from a small Midwestern town, to New York City where they hope to follow their dreams, and then we follow Kathryn to Boston. We see Luke turn into a successful publisher and bachelor for life, Starling a struggling actor and then a worse fate, and Kathryn a student, then a married woman and adulterer.
Review: In the beginning the book can be a little hard to read, but once you get past the first 30 or so pages, it becomes interesting, relatable, and totally engrossing. This is a story that follows about 70 or so years through some of the hardest times in history, but ending only days before September 11, 2001. I believe the author did that for a reason also; it seems despite the wars and the depression and the like, these three characters lives were fairly innocent and continuing on would have left them a lot less innocent. There is a chapter where you see three similar friends in Hiroshima, and you also see the outcome of those friends when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and I should give a warning that this chapter is disturbing and detailed. This is definitely not a story for everyone, but it is a good read; it puts things into perspective at times and can really make you think and I think anytime a book makes you think, that’s a good thing.
Review: In the beginning the book can be a little hard to read, but once you get past the first 30 or so pages, it becomes interesting, relatable, and totally engrossing. This is a story that follows about 70 or so years through some of the hardest times in history, but ending only days before September 11, 2001. I believe the author did that for a reason also; it seems despite the wars and the depression and the like, these three characters lives were fairly innocent and continuing on would have left them a lot less innocent. There is a chapter where you see three similar friends in Hiroshima, and you also see the outcome of those friends when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and I should give a warning that this chapter is disturbing and detailed. This is definitely not a story for everyone, but it is a good read; it puts things into perspective at times and can really make you think and I think anytime a book makes you think, that’s a good thing.
April 7, 2013
Terrible, trite, undeveloped, meandering, not worthy of a review.
I felt like I was viewing the characters, Kathryn, Starling, and Luke (three childhood friends who grow up to be adult friends) from afar. There is little dialogue and few descriptions of actual individual events. Lippincott describes summers and school days and parties and meetings, and skips entire years and decades. Big topics, including homosexuality, race relations, WWII, the atom bomb, etc., are touched upon, but do nothing to unify the story or create coherence. The writing was inaccessible, as if Lippincott wanted to prove that, by golly, she is a poet, but the book fails on nearly every level.
A sample of the horror:
"And so the three friends flourished and floundered, floundered and flourished, as the seconds and the minutes and the hours and the days, the weeks and the months and the years, piled up and eventually collapsed and got buried under the sheer accumulation of time."
"And so the years passed, they just swung by, accompanied by and inviolately intertwined with music, and music was nothing but a freight train, a large barge barreling down this track or that river with its incessant and inexorable and indefatigable rhythm, leading our fearless threesome on, pulling them along body and soul..."
"And so the years, like wheels, rolled blithely by, and summertime always came around again-- Katie, Luke and Star had, by now, all three of them, lived long enough to know and feel certain that hey at the very least could count on one thing: and so began the inevitable slow, sly glance toward the future."
"And so the school year passed, and much precious and valuable time was unconsciously and unintentionally wasted."
I felt like I was viewing the characters, Kathryn, Starling, and Luke (three childhood friends who grow up to be adult friends) from afar. There is little dialogue and few descriptions of actual individual events. Lippincott describes summers and school days and parties and meetings, and skips entire years and decades. Big topics, including homosexuality, race relations, WWII, the atom bomb, etc., are touched upon, but do nothing to unify the story or create coherence. The writing was inaccessible, as if Lippincott wanted to prove that, by golly, she is a poet, but the book fails on nearly every level.
A sample of the horror:
"And so the three friends flourished and floundered, floundered and flourished, as the seconds and the minutes and the hours and the days, the weeks and the months and the years, piled up and eventually collapsed and got buried under the sheer accumulation of time."
"And so the years passed, they just swung by, accompanied by and inviolately intertwined with music, and music was nothing but a freight train, a large barge barreling down this track or that river with its incessant and inexorable and indefatigable rhythm, leading our fearless threesome on, pulling them along body and soul..."
"And so the years, like wheels, rolled blithely by, and summertime always came around again-- Katie, Luke and Star had, by now, all three of them, lived long enough to know and feel certain that hey at the very least could count on one thing: and so began the inevitable slow, sly glance toward the future."
"And so the school year passed, and much precious and valuable time was unconsciously and unintentionally wasted."
May 16, 2012
Not bad for 99p of Amazon, a short engrossing read. There was a lot of plot and 'issues' packed in which left things feeling a bit unresolved; and yet somehow there was still ample oppoutinity to make page and page of seemingly pointless waffling or copying whole tracts of some other books. A bit heavy handed with the symbolism too. The prose just kind of lulled you though, and the main characters were fairly likeable and interesting.
I'm still not entirely sure what was supposed to have been accomplished by plonking in a scene each about Hiroshima or Auschwitz ... at least I really hope there's something more deep/intelligent/subtle to it.
The book would have got three stars but am knocking off a point for the Auschwitz name check, it was going so [comparativley] well up until then. I have a negative viceral reaction to mentions of Auschwitz for obvious reasons as a rational human, but also as a reader/historian/pedant. It struck me a completely overdone cheap trick sentimentality (with a ticklist of holocaust narrative cliches) that demeans everyone now contaminated by such prose; and in this case the scene genuinley added nothing to the plot/characterisation anyway.
Why is it always Auschwitz anyway; do Americans genuinley believe there was only Nazi one death camp?
It's winding me up all the more for overthinking every angle. Fine make your character an immigrant from Europe, but everyone in Europe suffered. Do more than five seconds research and pick some other way to orphan them (and on reflection why in American novels is every German immigrant a holocaust surviour ... why does nobody explore how the Nazis think/feel post-war; by Nazis I mean the average people caught up in the foibles of humanity & government that happened not to be backing the winner).
Sad part is the Hiroshima scene, while ultimatly pointless in narrative terms, was well written and suggested the application of research. Though strangley it didn't even allude to the fact that bomb was dropped because indeed Japan declared war on America; does that just not need saying, or would it have just ruined the carefully crafted ode to their humanity; 'they're just like us' ... yeah bombing the shit out of everything that might move (is that then the fundemental diffrence then of American and British mentality; that we somehow earnt the right to our moments of inhumanity, and wield education as a weapon).
Stupid book isn't even about the war or whatever, or so you'd imagine. Actually you take that part out and it's a fairly average coming of age/passage of life story framed against the backdrop of history because in some capacity everyone's small life is punctuated by such huge events (there I agree with the author).
At the end I read the author's biography and was suprised that he teaches creative writing, rather than had just been taught, so yeah that basically.
That's probably far too much thinking and ranting for 170 pages of a [metaphorical] cheap paperback.
I'm still not entirely sure what was supposed to have been accomplished by plonking in a scene each about Hiroshima or Auschwitz ... at least I really hope there's something more deep/intelligent/subtle to it.
The book would have got three stars but am knocking off a point for the Auschwitz name check, it was going so [comparativley] well up until then. I have a negative viceral reaction to mentions of Auschwitz for obvious reasons as a rational human, but also as a reader/historian/pedant. It struck me a completely overdone cheap trick sentimentality (with a ticklist of holocaust narrative cliches) that demeans everyone now contaminated by such prose; and in this case the scene genuinley added nothing to the plot/characterisation anyway.
Why is it always Auschwitz anyway; do Americans genuinley believe there was only Nazi one death camp?
It's winding me up all the more for overthinking every angle. Fine make your character an immigrant from Europe, but everyone in Europe suffered. Do more than five seconds research and pick some other way to orphan them (and on reflection why in American novels is every German immigrant a holocaust surviour ... why does nobody explore how the Nazis think/feel post-war; by Nazis I mean the average people caught up in the foibles of humanity & government that happened not to be backing the winner).
Sad part is the Hiroshima scene, while ultimatly pointless in narrative terms, was well written and suggested the application of research. Though strangley it didn't even allude to the fact that bomb was dropped because indeed Japan declared war on America; does that just not need saying, or would it have just ruined the carefully crafted ode to their humanity; 'they're just like us' ... yeah bombing the shit out of everything that might move (is that then the fundemental diffrence then of American and British mentality; that we somehow earnt the right to our moments of inhumanity, and wield education as a weapon).
Stupid book isn't even about the war or whatever, or so you'd imagine. Actually you take that part out and it's a fairly average coming of age/passage of life story framed against the backdrop of history because in some capacity everyone's small life is punctuated by such huge events (there I agree with the author).
At the end I read the author's biography and was suprised that he teaches creative writing, rather than had just been taught, so yeah that basically.
That's probably far too much thinking and ranting for 170 pages of a [metaphorical] cheap paperback.
May 11, 2009
IN THE MEANTIME is the finest book I've read this year. Robin Lippincott has managed, in a mere 170 pages, to tell the life stories of three compelling characters and friends--Kathryn, Luke, and Starling. Lippincott's tale begins with midwestern children who dream of escaping to New York City--an American ideal--to chase dreams and reinvent their lives. The friends come of age against the backdrop of WWII, details of which Lippincott creatively intertwines with his narrative. He paints vividly the bombing of Hiroshima and its devastating effects on the people of Japan. He reveals also the desperate fight for survival one man experiences in a Nazi concentration camp. These events, though geographically removed from his main characters, affect the tone and urgency of Lippincott's novel. That his characters--Kathryn, Luke, and Starling--might live life fully. That we as the novelist's readers might do the same. The novel ends a few days short of September 11, 2001. As Lippincott writes, fittingly, close to the end of his story, "She turned to musing about the brevity of human life and how, retrospectively, it is but a flash, an instant--something that takes place between this or that historical event, between this or that much larger and more significant natural phenomenon..."
I highly recommend this book.
I highly recommend this book.
May 25, 2009
I am not sure what the author was trying to accomplish with this book. First of all, it was extremely short. Secondly, nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. There were three main characters: Kathryn, Luke and Starling. Friends since they were children, the book skips at random to different points in their life for no apparent reason. At one bizarre point, the book jumps to a Japanese person names Seichi during the bombing of Hiroshima. There is no explanation for this non sequitor and it just makes the reader think WTF? The character or events are not mentioned again until the last page of the book, when the author makes a half-hearted attempt to resolve the situtation, but all it ends up doing is making the reader extremely glad the book is over. Not recommended.
December 18, 2012
A direct quote from the book "in writing a book...one should really begin as early as possible in the life of that character, so as to seemingly lengthen or extend the life portrayed; to cover more ground; and then, too, to go over that life - those minutes, hours and days - slowly, and in the greatest of detail, as if with a fine-toothed comb".
That is exactly what happened in this book. I love getting to know a character gradually throughout a book, finding little pieces of information at different times.
I have read a number of comments stating that nothing happened throughout the book, in terms of story. For those people, I think the point in the book has been missed. Rather than events, the book was about relationshhips, bonds. I loved it for that reason.
That is exactly what happened in this book. I love getting to know a character gradually throughout a book, finding little pieces of information at different times.
I have read a number of comments stating that nothing happened throughout the book, in terms of story. For those people, I think the point in the book has been missed. Rather than events, the book was about relationshhips, bonds. I loved it for that reason.
January 18, 2010
This is a slim novel which satisfies the reading palette in a way many large ones cannot. It's a small story about three friends and their very different perspectives on life, New York, literature, art, music, and the world from WWII to contemporary moments.
Lippincott's writing is exquisite. His sentences are crafted as well as Virginia Woolf's, and when he dips into a scene, the brushstrokes he uses to paint it for his readers are both detailed and broad. There's a scene where the friends see Billie Holliday, and I would have sworn he had been there to experience it.
This review doesn't do the book enough credit, but I'm out of time.
Read his Mr. Dalloway too: another gem.
Lippincott's writing is exquisite. His sentences are crafted as well as Virginia Woolf's, and when he dips into a scene, the brushstrokes he uses to paint it for his readers are both detailed and broad. There's a scene where the friends see Billie Holliday, and I would have sworn he had been there to experience it.
This review doesn't do the book enough credit, but I'm out of time.
Read his Mr. Dalloway too: another gem.
February 28, 2009
I had a review and it disappeared. Hopefully this one will stick.
There is so much that I found compelling about this book. It follows the lifetime of three friends, but does so much more and does it so subtely that by the end I was left thinking about these characters and the whole structure of the novel. It's one of those "you don't realize what's happening to you until long after the last word" novels. I was fascinated with the use of time and the language all wrapped up in the shifting points of view. It just was done so well that I still think about it.
There is so much that I found compelling about this book. It follows the lifetime of three friends, but does so much more and does it so subtely that by the end I was left thinking about these characters and the whole structure of the novel. It's one of those "you don't realize what's happening to you until long after the last word" novels. I was fascinated with the use of time and the language all wrapped up in the shifting points of view. It just was done so well that I still think about it.
March 23, 2012
This book really should have been so much better than it was. It was an interesting idea and endearing characters but the writer just never seemed to figure out what he was trying to say. For example, I have no idea why there was a sudden excerpt from a character in Hiroshima, who we then don't hear from again. Nor do I know why he kept referring to sets of three friends, to mirror the central three. I also thought his style was completely overblown - some of the sentences went on for pages...
All in all, kind of disappointing.
All in all, kind of disappointing.
June 5, 2013
So I got a kindle and just wanted to test it out so I got this book in the bargain kindle books section. It was clearly there for a reason...first of all, the description was more interesting than the actual book. I thought it was going to be some awesome, spindly, time traveling tale of friends with historical events sprinkled in, but it was really just a sort of half-told bunch of nonsense that sounded like something a middle schooler wrote for their creative writing class. Not worth the time or $2.99. Don't do it. PS: I do love the kindle, best doctor's office waiting room friend ever!
August 1, 2014
Kind of a bizarre book. Not entirely sure what I thought. 3 kids meet as children and grow up together. Super close. As they get older it turns into complicated love triangles and weird directions in life. They get close and grow apart. it's just about their lives from children through death: Kathryn (the only girl, fairly controlling, not very happy). Starling(his life is a mess, turns out he's gay, falls in love with his best friend). Luke (loner, has a falling out with Starling, doesn't want to pursue the path his father wants for him).
August 31, 2014
I'm not really sure what the point was. There was no real story. It is a glimpse into the lives of 3 friends, but you never really get to know anyone but Kat. I kept waiting for the big reveal, the climax... but it never came. What happened to Starling? What went on in Liam's head or in his life? The only part that kept my attention was Peter and the Germany story. I felt like I knew him better than anyone and yet he was not a main character. Not the most interesting or well - written book I have come across.
August 23, 2013
I liked this book even more after I finished it and thought about it. I think it is one I might read again to see new things. I liked the mundaneness of this book. The ebb and flow of life events and of friendship. The way life goes by without a lot of fanfare.
I appreciated the stream of consciousness sentences. And I loved the juxtaposition of the main three characters with other groups of 3 that Kathryn met along the way.
I appreciated the stream of consciousness sentences. And I loved the juxtaposition of the main three characters with other groups of 3 that Kathryn met along the way.
March 3, 2008
Poignant story about 3 childhood friends who grow up a 1930's
midwestern town and stay very close throughout their adolescent years. They fulfill their dream of moving to New York City together as young adults. The book chronicles their friendship as they move into middle age and on. It was very good.
midwestern town and stay very close throughout their adolescent years. They fulfill their dream of moving to New York City together as young adults. The book chronicles their friendship as they move into middle age and on. It was very good.
May 6, 2012
An interesting idea, though I felt that it left much to be desired. It was a short story that I think could have gone so much deeper. I can appreciate the friendship the three characters had, but it left me wanting more. In all, the story felt like the outline of a much better, more complex story waiting to be written.
October 27, 2008
This is just out in paperback---which quotes my OutSmart review! http://www.outsmartmagazine.com/this_...
this is spare, subtle writing. Expect no car crashes, just quiet conversation between friends that conceals as much as it reveals.
this is spare, subtle writing. Expect no car crashes, just quiet conversation between friends that conceals as much as it reveals.
October 2, 2011
Can't say it better than Nina Sankovitch (my favorite reviewer):
In The Meantime is a beautifully written novel about what we are given in life, and what we do with all that we have; what we squander, what we hold dear, and what we cannot hold onto, no matter how hard we try.
In The Meantime is a beautifully written novel about what we are given in life, and what we do with all that we have; what we squander, what we hold dear, and what we cannot hold onto, no matter how hard we try.
December 11, 2007
I thought I would really enjoy this book, but ended up finding it frustrating. The characters were interesting, but I felt like I didn't have enough time to get to know them as well as I wanted to.
February 9, 2008
I've read all of Robin's work. OUR ARCADIA is still my favorite, but I liked this one, too. Kind of unraveled in the end for me, but I think that was his intention.
March 25, 2008
I’m biased -- he was a former teacher and mentor of mine -- but no matter. This is a finely conceived and executed piece of literature. Wonderful and true.
February 6, 2009
Predictable, with few insights. The Luke character is a complete mystery and not in a good way. It stays superficial throughout. A disappointment.
June 9, 2009
a beautiful, beautiful effing book. i love this man.
July 28, 2009
The wonder of friendships beautifully rendered with thier flaws and tender love.
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February 3, 2012A book of never ending sentences. I barely made it 10% into the book for its poor writing with the use of excessively long sentences.
May 16, 2023
Sound premise but it just didn't develop...I kept waiting for the characters to become adults with interesting lives and they just didn't....
May 11, 2013
I loved that the three were friends for so many years, coming and going in each others lives, but always knowing they were there for each other.
December 14, 2013
OK read, but somehow felt it didn't really go anywhere
January 13, 2009
Loved it!
June 3, 2012
This book was sad the whole time, and made it seem like the characters lives were all a waste :(
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews