A Cooler Climate

by Zena Collier

When Iris, 45, divorces her wealthy physician husband of many years to go off to a new life with the man she loves, she settles for a quick but inequitable divorce. When her lover then abandons her, she finds herself alone, desperate and without resources. Unprepared to earn her own living, she fails at one job after another and loses all confidence. Iris finally decides to use the one skill she acquired in her marriagehousekeeping. To the dismay of her friends and her daughter, she takes a job as housekeeper in the luxurious Maine summer home of Broadway lawyer Leo Tanner and his wife Paula. It soon becomes clear that Paula has no life of her ownher entire life revolves around her husband and their troubled daughter, Beth. It also grows clear that the role of Iris is more that of maid than housekeeper. Paula is cold and arrogant, and makes unreasonable demands, which Iris must cater to because she needs the job. Gradually Iris makes friends in the community, begins to regain confidence, and is determined to work her way through to independence. Paula suffers a crushing double blow when her daughter runs off with an unscrupulous young man and Leo demands a divorce. In anguish, Paula reaches out to Iris and they become tentative friends. But Iris fears she will lose her chance of independence if she stays with Paula. In taking steps to make a life of her own, Iris sets in motion a chain of unforeseen events for Paula.

208 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1990

Reviews

[Christine Sinclair]

From the book jacket: "Zena Collier gently and honestly weaves a fabric of relationships: mothers and daughters, love and friendship, fear and independence, to create a timely portrait of women who survive." This debut novel is the engrossing story of Iris Prue, who has to reinvent herself at age forty-five. She surprises her friends (and herself) by taking a job as a live-in housekeeper at a beautiful home in Maine, which leads to even more drastic changes in her life. A very good read.

[Joan Maclin]

A very solid beach read at least. Good story that will ring a bit more true to women than men, I suspect. Great use of coastal Maine to provide the perfect environment for the story. This is a pretty plausible plot, for those who struggle with willing suspension of disbelief.

[Valerie]

Forty-five-year-old Iris has left her wealthy plastic-surgeon husband, and accepted a poor settlement for a quick divorce so that she can be with her younger artist-boyfriend, Oliver, who has promptly ditched her. Iris is distraught. She's not the only one. Her daughter, Callie, a lawyer, is angry with her mother and when Iris asks for a loan—one of many loans that Iris is asking of her daughter and close friends—the request is denied. Iris, untrained, incapable of keeping a job when she finds one, finally lands herself a position as housekeeper in an affluent household in Maine. Mrs Paula Tanner, her uptight new boss with problems of her own, is anything but easy to please and Iris is put in a position of biting her tongue or biting the dust.

The movie of A Cooler Climate (1999) has its amusing moments but the humour doesn't come through in the book. Having said that, the book isn't miserable or depressing, it simply reflects the reality of broken relationships and failed expectations. Many women will relate to Iris and Paula in one way or another, either directly through personal experience or through knowing someone who has had similar experiences.

Iris, feeling ignored and unhappy in her marriage to Harry falls in love with a younger man and in the belief that a bed of roses lies before her, ditches her unhappy old life and, foolishly perhaps, the money that went with it. In the book we follow Iris as she learns to stand on her own feet and tolerate scorn and mistreatment from an older woman, a women with whom she, Iris, at one time had an equal standing.

Paula is in her sixties and living a life of luxury. Although we don't know it initially, it doesn't take long before the book makes it clear that Paula has problems of her own, psychological problems. Her husband, Leo, is a lawyer for actors and spends much of his time in New York and away from Paula.

While the two women clash, perhaps because they are too similar in nature and circumstances, it's interesting how the book swayed my opinion. At times I felt terribly sorry for Iris and dislike for Paula, and then it was the other way around. Iris' behaviour was often childish, petulant, and selfish. Paula could be selfish, needy, and vulnerable.

All in all the book is an honest portrayal of human nature. Unfortunately, it has a most unsatisfactory ending, quite unlike the movie.

http://movies-and-books-world.blogspo...