Successful Boston cookbook author Daria Walker, whose greatest pleasures are her home and family -- and who loves her husband deeply -- is devastated to learn he wants a divorce. Now she must put her life back together. But as she strives to understand the life she is losing, Daria must face the shocking truth behind the smooth facade of her prominent attorney-husband, Ross -- and recreate her own values, her own sense of family, and herself.
Marge Piercy is an American poet, novelist, and social activist. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Gone to Soldiers, a sweeping historical novel set during World War II.
Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a family deeply affected by the Great Depression. She was the first in her family to attend college, studying at the University of Michigan. Winning a Hopwood Award for Poetry and Fiction (1957) enabled her to finish college and spend some time in France, and her formal schooling ended with an M.A. from Northwestern University. Her first book of poems, Breaking Camp, was published in 1968.
An indifferent student in her early years, Piercy developed a love of books when she came down with rheumatic fever in her mid-childhood and could do little but read. "It taught me that there's a different world there, that there were all these horizons that were quite different from what I could see," she said in a 1984 interview.
As of 2013, she is author of seventeen volumes of poems, among them The Moon is Always Female (1980, considered a feminist classic) and The Art of Blessing the Day (1999), as well as fifteen novels, one play (The Last White Class, co-authored with her third and current husband Ira Wood), one collection of essays (Parti-colored Blocks for a Quilt), one non-fiction book, and one memoir.
Her novels and poetry often focus on feminist or social concerns, although her settings vary. While Body of Glass (published in the US as He, She and It) is a science fiction novel that won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, City of Darkness, City of Light is set during the French Revolution. Other of her novels, such as Summer People and The Longings of Women are set during the modern day. All of her books share a focus on women's lives.
Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) mixes a time travel story with issues of social justice, feminism, and the treatment of the mentally ill. This novel is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic. William Gibson has credited Woman on the Edge of Time as the birthplace of Cyberpunk. Piercy tells this in an introduction to Body of Glass. Body of Glass (He, She and It) (1991) postulates an environmentally ruined world dominated by sprawling mega-cities and a futuristic version of the Internet, through which Piercy weaves elements of Jewish mysticism and the legend of the Golem, although a key story element is the main character's attempts to regain custody of her young son.
Many of Piercy's novels tell their stories from the viewpoints of multiple characters, often including a first-person voice among numerous third-person narratives. Her World War II historical novel, Gone To Soldiers (1987) follows the lives of nine major characters in the United States, Europe and Asia. The first-person account in Gone To Soldiers is the diary of French teenager Jacqueline Levy-Monot, who is also followed in a third-person account after her capture by the Nazis.
Piercy's poetry tends to be highly personal free verse and often addresses the same concern with feminist and social issues. Her work shows commitment to the dream of social change (what she might call, in Judaic terms, tikkun olam, or the repair of the world), rooted in story, the wheel of the Jewish year, and a range of landscapes and settings.
She lives in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, Massachusetts with her husband, Ira Wood.
I've been curiously homesick for a certain kind of mental atmosphere- one that I think I was beginning to gleam when I was six, watching Cagney and Lacey on a borrowed television while my mom cooked dinner in the kitchen. It's a mentality of woman as sensuous, defiant, hard working, beautiful, maybe a little fragile but definitely tough, and deeply empowered by sisterhood, where the lines that link the oppression of women with class oppression are drawn clearly and undeniably, where the struggle is tinged with dogged hope, not oily despiar. It's a romanticization, obviously, but Marge Piercy's novel is set in a world that embodies that mental atmosphere.
There is a lot to be critical of in this book- a lot of sentences that don't hang together well, a sense of careless in the writing that is surprising to me. Her secondary villians are so cartoonishly bad that they are laughable. But there is a lot that makes a deep emotional sense, and her solutions- well, they resonate strongly.
OMG. This was TERRIBLE. I wanted to shake the protagonist and the plot was just ... awful. Wooden characters. Ridiculous distractions and sub-plots. Too many characters to keep straight and most of them were completely useless to the "plot". I don't know why I bothered finishing this, other than to perhaps determine whether it was going to be this terrible right to the end. I completely skimmed the last 20% of the book, which was SO LONG. Save yourself.
In ways depressing look at the power wielded by real estate "gentrifiers" colluding with banks, insurance companies, and arsonists. Really enjoyed the characters and the growth of the main character, and found the information on how it works fascinating, if, as I said, depressing.
Much more than a chick-lit book about a writer facing divorce. This book is well-researched about the arson epidemic in Boston in the 1980s that turned the Fenway part of town from a "rough" area into where the up-and-coming came.
I know someone who lived in that area at that time. She once made a 911 call that went something like this, she: "I am reporting a fire." --dispatcher: "do you smell smoke?" -- she: "No, I live on Symphony and I smell kerosene". The engines came immediately.
I am re-reading this, as one of my read again novels. I was (and remain) particularly pleased by the way in which Piercy adapts a domestic task into a career for the main protagonist. Although Daria is remarkably aggravating at times, her clinging to the image of Ross, the husband she wed as a young, inexperienced woman is understandable. The conflict between the two daughters and their parents' roles in their own images is also something to think about.
Romance is an aspect of the novel, but does not overwhelm the political points Piercy makes about women's roles and feminism; property development and moral turpitude and family dynamics.
Taking a domestic task as a career option is the strongest feminist point Piercy makes. Firstly, Daria cooks for her husband's 'get up the ladder/impress' dinners. She is portrayed as his property, a useful property as a domestic chef who produces food to impress. She is less interested in producing this cuisine than the home cooking style (with a twist, as Master Chef publicity tells us is enviable) she prefers. Ross is less impressed with her writing cook books and television appearances - these are her activities which he cannot control and therefore sees as a burden. However, these aspects of Daria's domestic prowess give her and her cooking a public role.
Piercy also creates images of married and unmarried women which suggest that the latter, although they may have children, are freer and less inclined to seek approval. Their habits are portrayed as different from Daria's. However, when an attempt is made to push her into the subservient role of daughter and sister when Ross leaves her, she rebels, despite being made to feel like an overgrown child by her brother.
Appearance is also an issue - Piercy refusing to endorse thin as necessary for a woman, giving most of the variously shaped women portrayed positive endorsement. Men are also portrayed with physical features under a woman's gaze, although here the WASP appearance of Ross is compared negatively to the large, warm images (initially threatening) of Daria's preferred appearance later in the novel. Here, class and ethnic background are part of Daria's gaze.
Fly Away Home is set in various parts of Boston and to a small extent, Cambridge, so is an attractive locale, establishing a background to development and redevelopment that is integral to the story. Having visited Boston on numerous occasions I found this particularly interesting.
Although there are typewriters instead of lap tops; Daria has to find a pay phone instead of whipping out her mobile; and cookery has become a television favourite instead of a 3-4 minute slot for Daria to show her crudités and dip many of the feminist issues still resonate, making this a worthwhile novel to read in the 2000s.
I was really disapointed in this book. Years ago, I read Gone to Soldiers by Marge Piercy and thought she was a good writer. Not this time. I thought the plot was totally predictable, characters were stereotypes, dialogue was very awkward and in general, it was boring. The story is about a woman whose husband cheats on her. She has willingly been totally subserviant to him, allowing him to make all the important decisions in their lives. When she discovers his adultery she accidentally discovers that he is also a completely evil person. He has a long history of criminal activity in his business practices and has put certain real estate deals in her name. Gradually, she learns to become independent and self sufficient. And, even to catch him in his crimes and attempt to undo damage. Predictable. I almost gave up in the first 50-100 pages because it seemed like a romance novel - not my type. I will, however, read more Marge Piercy and, perhaps, read Gone to Soldiers again to restore my faith.
Not plausible- her mom gets taken off life support and no one thinks to be at her bedside? Her husband suddenly and apologetically loves someone else? So many things are mentioned in passing. Almost like the author is as isolated from life as the protagonist.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This is my favorite of Piercy's books; I've read and reread it. As someone who recently went through a painful divorce, I totally relate to the main character, Daria's, metamorphosis into an independent woman.
Marge Piercy’s Fly Away Home didn’t grab me at first. I almost put it aside after the first hundred pages.
At forty-three, Daria seems to have a perfect life. A nice home in Boston, a flourishing career as a cookbook author, “two delightful daughters,” and a successful lawyer husband named Russ whom she “always put first.”
You see the problem? Daria lives in a bubble. It’s obvious in their first conversation that Russ is an asshole. He doesn’t respect her work, bugs her about gaining weight and makes rude comments about her inattentive housekeeping and spending too much time on her pretend career.
Daria isn’t much easier to like. She makes excuses for Russ, goes on a diet, passes on an opportunity to cook on a local TV show and ignores evidence of Russ’s lies.
If you consider reading this book, it will help to know that Daria finally pops her bubble of quasi-happiness. She finds out that Russ isn’t just a cheating husband but an unscrupulous slumlord. That’s when Fly Away Home finally engaged me. Up to that point, I thought ‘who the hell is this author writing a novel in 1984 about a submissive 1950’s stereotypical wife?’
When Daria evolves into a fighter, I begin to understand Piercy’s slow pace. She wanted us to witness Daria’s metamorphoses from a woman willing to conform, to a woman demanding truth and insisting on her own happiness.
Piercy reveals Daria’s fullness – her bravery, her passions for food, family and good sex. A woman admitting to narrow views, wanting to expand her world.
I picked up Fly Away Home because I recognized the name Marge Piercy but I hadn’t remembered why. Digging through my bookshelves I found a copy of her 2005 novel Sex Wars. Then it clicked. Marge Piercy’s writing has been all about empowering women.
Born in 1936, Piercy began writing at a young age. She won a writing scholarship and numerous writing awards while attending the University of Michigan. She’s spent her entire life pushing back against stereotypes. She didn’t feel she fit into any of the images of what women were supposed to be like. A feminist, socialist and anti-war demonstrator, she’s had an amazing writing career.
The twenty-one years between Fly Away Home and Sex Wars shows a writer growing in her craft, honing her message while never losing her passion or purpose.
A substantial novel, Fly Away Home provides hours of reading pleasure as the plot draws you in and leaves you wondering what will happen next. This is a story about losing complacency and security while learning to find a new way of existing. It also tackles the issue of financial predation visited on the 'have nots' by some of the more fortunate. In the end, it's a story of one woman's awakening and courage.
At times, the book dragged a bit because of the wealth of details included, and the novel would have benefited from more dialogue and less background. But the story was engrossing, and it was worth following through to the end. I admired Daria and wanted to see her life get back on track, and that kept me reading, along with the need to find out how the story unfolded.
I find myself agreeing with all the negative and positive reviews. In fact, this book was so bad in parts that I almost stopped reading: the Mom going off life support while everyone goes off to dinner; the cluelessness of the main character throughout; all sorts of loose ends that never go anywhere/get tied; lots of characters that have same/similar names that are hard to keep track of. And yet. . . what I liked about this book was the snapshot of what being middle-aged in the 1980s was like (published in 1984 the year I graduated high school: no cell phones, gentrification, women's lib). It also successfully pulled me in. Sort of like when my teenagers would turn on Pretty Little Liars on the T.V., which is like watching a slow sordid train reck. Not recommended but sort of a fun guilty pleasure.
This book is no Gone to Soldiers, but it's an engaging time capsule of a read. The power dynamics of the relationship between Daria and Ross felt very '80s to me: nominally equal since Daria had her own career, yet very unequal because she constantly made herself less so as not to make him feel threatened. Daria's navel gazing throughout the early part of the book went on way too long, but things got much more interesting when Boston's 1980s arson epidemic arrived on the scene. I found it easy to point out individual awkward or clunky passages, but Piercy was such a good writer that I willingly stayed along for the ride.
If I had been able to return this book to Amazon, I'm sure I would have. It took 50 pages to have potential, and 113 pages to become interesting. I found it difficult to relate to the main character, Daria. Were women really expected to cover up how successful they are so their husband's egos don't get bruised in 1984?
That said, the subject of gentrification is timely. And with an update this book could be good. But as is, it's dated - not old enough to be a classic, but old enough to feel stale.
Hate giving bad ratings but this book was sad: unsympathetic and incredibly dumb main character, Simon Lehrer husband, the good daughter, the bad daughter. And the deserving poor. Pacing is slow as molasses, facts are off, and it was completely trite and a waste of time. I had to skip entire pages due to boredom. So in a nutshell, a miserable read with good cover art work.
I so enjoyed this book. While several of the characters were extraneous and at time I found myself asking "Now who is this again?", this didn't detract terribly from the writing. The main characters were terrific, people I ended up caring about a lot. The plot was well drawn, perhaps a tad too long, but definitely kept my interest.
Like many women, the main character of this book believed her life was almost ideal; and then he asked for a divorce. At first, she felt her life was shattered, perhaps over. One child sided with her husband, one with her. What happens next is a realistic look at how, with time, people change.
This book had the seedling of a storyline that never fully developed. The plot was plodding, the characters were one-dimensional, and all the connections (between the husband and wife, between the arson victims and the fire/police officials, the judicial system and the "heroes", etc) were tenuous and abruptly developed.
I picked up this book on the grounds that I have liked almost everything of Piercy's I had previously read. The book started off reading like a (well-written) fluffy kind of story about a woman whose mother dies and whose husband is probably having an affair. Then there are several plot twists and the book ends nowhere near the genre it appeared to present at the beginning. I enjoyed it.
I don't like to read books that portray women as weak and doormats and that's how this book began. I was about ready to delete it but read awhile longer. I'm glad I did! The story finally took a turn for the better and I began to relate with the main character. It finished well. Stay with it. I promise you it gets better!
Enjoyed this book in a perverse way. So much of the early part had resonance with parts of my own life. The naivety of the central character rankled at times. The ‘happy ever after ‘ ending was a bit trite.
Awesome read written 35 years ago about topics that never go away
Had never read this author before, but now I will. This was an excellent book, with themes very pertinent to today. Crossed many age and gender groups.
An overly long but well written book with a story we all know well: the one about the middle aged woman who gives her all to her husband and family, only to find that her husband has grown bored and feels he now deserves a new plaything.
The writing was quite good and story line had a different twist than most books now days. I found it rambled on too much about her thoughts and emotions so you lost the place in the story.
Almost quit reading because Ross made me sick, but wanted to find out what the sneaky no-good was doing. Glad I hung on to see Daria ɓecome a woman of surprise.
In the first 150 pages, I couldn’t put the book down. Then, it started to drag. The immense amount of detail is unwarranted. Unfortunately the drama was slow & became annoying. The end was inevitable.
Piercy is writing truth through fiction. Hopefully Piercy pierces hearts and minds with her beautiful storytelling. I will continue reading her books .