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The Truth About Parallel Lines
It is 1981 in New York City. While celebrating her 18th birthday, Jenna Kessler tells a story that stays with her for the rest of her life.
Growing up in the shadow of an over-protective mother, Chloe Toberman finds freedom in the secrets that she keeps.
Deirdre Schein is a doctor, struggling to find her place in her family. Her quiet and stable life is both challenged and made richer by the demands of her flamboyant and unpredictable twin brother.
The Truth About Parallel Lines takes place over more than 30 years. It is the story of three women, love after loss, triumph over tragedy, and the friendships that sustain them.
"The Group and The Best of Everything were the two books that made me want to be a writer. And here's Jill D. Block, clearly the long-lost bastard daughter of Mary McCarthy and Rona Jaffe, with The Truth About Parallel Lines. The story covers something like thirty years, and—just sayin'— I read it in one sitting."
-Jill Emerson
"Charming and utterly engaging, Jill Block’s debut The Truth About Parallel Lines will make you laugh and cry as her characters follow their dreams and then entice you to meditate on the intersection of truth and fiction in your own life."
-Nina Solomon, author of Single Wife and The Love Book
Growing up in the shadow of an over-protective mother, Chloe Toberman finds freedom in the secrets that she keeps.
Deirdre Schein is a doctor, struggling to find her place in her family. Her quiet and stable life is both challenged and made richer by the demands of her flamboyant and unpredictable twin brother.
The Truth About Parallel Lines takes place over more than 30 years. It is the story of three women, love after loss, triumph over tragedy, and the friendships that sustain them.
"The Group and The Best of Everything were the two books that made me want to be a writer. And here's Jill D. Block, clearly the long-lost bastard daughter of Mary McCarthy and Rona Jaffe, with The Truth About Parallel Lines. The story covers something like thirty years, and—just sayin'— I read it in one sitting."
-Jill Emerson
"Charming and utterly engaging, Jill Block’s debut The Truth About Parallel Lines will make you laugh and cry as her characters follow their dreams and then entice you to meditate on the intersection of truth and fiction in your own life."
-Nina Solomon, author of Single Wife and The Love Book
228 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 4, 2018
3 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
Jill D. Block
12 books9 followersJill D. Block was born in Buffalo, NY, raised in Titusville, NJ, and spent her formative years in New York City. She attended Stuyvesant High School, Clark University and Brooklyn Law School.
A voracious reader, Jill is a partner at a global law firm, practicing real estate law. In between billable hours, she writes the kind of fiction she likes to read.
In 2015, Jill published her first short story. Since then, her stories have appeared in Title Magazine (Australia) and the anthologies Dark City Lights, In Sunlight or in Shadow and Alive in Shape and Color. The Truth About Parallel Lines is her first novel.
Jill lives in New York City.
A voracious reader, Jill is a partner at a global law firm, practicing real estate law. In between billable hours, she writes the kind of fiction she likes to read.
In 2015, Jill published her first short story. Since then, her stories have appeared in Title Magazine (Australia) and the anthologies Dark City Lights, In Sunlight or in Shadow and Alive in Shape and Color. The Truth About Parallel Lines is her first novel.
Jill lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 15, 2018
I’ve read more of Lawrence Block’s books than I can count – he’s a writer I much admire. In one anthology of short stories he edited (Alive in Shape and Colour) I came across a tale by Jill D. Block; LB’s daughter, it transpired. Her story intrigued me and so I was delighted to get my hands on her first full length novel. This isn’t a hardboiled crime novel of the type that her father has trotted out with much success over the years, instead it’s a story of a group of people and how their lives, their travails and their successes play out and intersect over the period of some 30 years.
Jenna is a storyteller who once came up with The Adventures of Peanut Girl to entertain Chloe, a young girl she was babysitting. Chloe’s dad John is kind and dapper and Jenna is drawn to pretend to her friends that he’s her secret boyfriend. Jenna’s mum, Joanne, is struggling to overcome her angst and anger at her husband, Andrew, having left her for his ‘midlife crisis’ girlfriend, Deirdre. And Deirdre is a hardworking doctor with a twin brother who has significant challenges of his own. These and others make up the cast of this book.
There are a lot of characters here and I found myself regularly checking back to remind myself who each of them were, as the focus of the story chopped from one to the other. There’s also the fact that there were regular jumps in time (sometimes a few years) as the narrative wove its way through three decades of affairs, career changes, deaths, marriages and the rest. This could have become taxing to the point of distraction but, in truth, I’d become invested in the outcomes for these people and I really wanted to know how things developed.
I suppose you could characterise this as chic-lit – I’m not sure, it’s not a genre I’m particularly familiar with – but I’d prefer to think that it’s just a well told story of how events in life can affect others as much as they impact you. It provided food for thought and reflection as well as the pure entertainment of reading an interesting story. It’s a book I was certainly glad to spend some time with.
My thanks to Jill D. Block, Montague Street Press and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Jenna is a storyteller who once came up with The Adventures of Peanut Girl to entertain Chloe, a young girl she was babysitting. Chloe’s dad John is kind and dapper and Jenna is drawn to pretend to her friends that he’s her secret boyfriend. Jenna’s mum, Joanne, is struggling to overcome her angst and anger at her husband, Andrew, having left her for his ‘midlife crisis’ girlfriend, Deirdre. And Deirdre is a hardworking doctor with a twin brother who has significant challenges of his own. These and others make up the cast of this book.
There are a lot of characters here and I found myself regularly checking back to remind myself who each of them were, as the focus of the story chopped from one to the other. There’s also the fact that there were regular jumps in time (sometimes a few years) as the narrative wove its way through three decades of affairs, career changes, deaths, marriages and the rest. This could have become taxing to the point of distraction but, in truth, I’d become invested in the outcomes for these people and I really wanted to know how things developed.
I suppose you could characterise this as chic-lit – I’m not sure, it’s not a genre I’m particularly familiar with – but I’d prefer to think that it’s just a well told story of how events in life can affect others as much as they impact you. It provided food for thought and reflection as well as the pure entertainment of reading an interesting story. It’s a book I was certainly glad to spend some time with.
My thanks to Jill D. Block, Montague Street Press and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
May 17, 2018
Well, how much of a surprise could it be that I love this book? I mean, what did you expect?
I first read Jill D. Block's work more than thirty years ago, when she wrote a couple of stories in high school and college. It was clear to me that she had in abundance the talent required for a career as a writer, but it's not enough to have the potential to achieve something; you have to want it. So Jill went to law school, and on to a very successful career as a commercial real estate lawyer.
And then she was ready, and resumed writing. Sold a couple of short stories. And went to work on a novel. She showed me pieces of the novel as she wrote them, and I'd like to say I made suggestions, but I really didn't. No need to. It was clear she knew what she was doing.
So there. I love the book, even as I love its author. Really, what did you expect?
I first read Jill D. Block's work more than thirty years ago, when she wrote a couple of stories in high school and college. It was clear to me that she had in abundance the talent required for a career as a writer, but it's not enough to have the potential to achieve something; you have to want it. So Jill went to law school, and on to a very successful career as a commercial real estate lawyer.
And then she was ready, and resumed writing. Sold a couple of short stories. And went to work on a novel. She showed me pieces of the novel as she wrote them, and I'd like to say I made suggestions, but I really didn't. No need to. It was clear she knew what she was doing.
So there. I love the book, even as I love its author. Really, what did you expect?
May 30, 2018
via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
'I guess I had been imagining it for a long time. After almost four years, I felt like I was a part of their family. I wished I was. And really, who could blame me?'
Jenna likes to tell stories, in fact she’s incredibly talented when it comes to fiction. Her skill is a gift that opens doors for her when she writes a story, The Adventures of Peanut Girl, for the little girl (Chloe) she babysits, one that happens to be the daughter of her pretend married boyfriend, John. She has problems within her own family when her parent’s split apart, enter Deirdre (or as her mother likes to call her, Jenna’s father’s ‘midlife crisis’). Life is complicated when lives running parallel begin to intersect. Deirdre is meant to remain simply the harlot, the evil other woman, but Deirdre in reality is more than just Andrew’s kept woman. She is a hardworking doctor, a sister to an exciting but exhausting twin brother (he also has a heavy story). She is also the catalyst for the hatred growing inside Joanne, one that damages the relationship between Jenna and her mother. She may be with Andrew, but ‘for Jenna’s sake’ he better keep that part of his life seperate if he wants to remain in his daughter’s life.
Jenna’s loyalty is constantly under scrutiny from her heartbroken mother, distraught by her husband’s betrayal. Maybe in a healthy world we all should try to bridge the poisonous distance rejection and cheating creates, and it’s easy with clear heads watching from the outside to see how anger takes its toll on the child, stuck in the middle, loving both parents, hunkering for stability. Unless it’s you harboring the wounded animal heart, dealing with the turbulence of your emotions that make you selfish and bitter, it’s easy to believe in embracing change, rising above the torment of your pain for the sake of your child. Women and men do it all the time, swallow their pride, attempt the grin and bear it approach and remain civil for the sake of the children’s emotional well-being. Then there is the other side, those who are stuck in fury and use the child as a pawn, whether intentionally or not. Jenna is caught up in the maelstrom of her mother’s wounded pride. The other woman is enough to make her spit nails, but what happens when Jenna begins to like Deirdre? How sick is it to pretend she doesn’t exist, that her father is meant to compartmentalize his love life from his family life? Is she meant to remain a phantom presence for all eternity just to spare her mother’s feelings, while Jenna is used as the reason? It isn’t long before Jenna herself mirrors Deirdre and her father’s relationship. She will understand all too well the obstacles and difficulties Deirdre dealt with in coming between a family.
Chloe’s mother has always shadowed her and to her father John’s mind, is a big reason he decides to remain married to Mara. Mara doesn’t have the sort of skin required for moving on, for abrupt changes, for divorce. John had been down that road before with his first wife Vivian and their boys. But there is something different, some hole inside of Mara that refuses to let go. The reader catches of glimpse of the cold, overbearing Mara as Jenna ‘pokes around’ their home, as she becomes intimately close with the family, even vacationing with them, mentored in a sense by John. But the story isn’t really about the men, who they love or don’t love, nor who remains the wife and who is the invisible lover. The women have pasts that color all of their relationships. Mara is coming undone, but Chloe is drifting further away, no longer feeling that mother/daughter bond.
Jenna thought her time waiting for love would be rewarded, and never imagined the ending fate created for her love story. When she begins to move on, her mother is always the one obstacle that cannot detach from the pain of the past, preventing even the simplest joys with her stubborn refusal to let go of her resentments. No one can imagine that her pain was set during her own childhood that began with the death of her own mother. Jenna keeps her secrets close too, messing up her new love with omissions, so as not to face the past she is trying to forget. Both are more similar than they know, trying to ignore painful points in their lives, yet unaware how much it affects the present.
Chloe (the peanut girl) comes of age and finds herself on the outside too, a ‘invisible woman’ but for a different reason than an affair. She is forbidden, an unaccepted shame to her lover’s family. Every relationship in this novel is complicated. Mara is deeply troubled, numb and disconnected in some ways and overly involved in others. Jenna is the main character who starts as a fanciful romantic teenager likely stunted by her own mother’s reaction to the break in her marriage, maybe John is a way of rebelling or maybe love is genuine, maybe she conjured a love story into being? But her little game with her friends sets the pace for her entire adulthood where men are concerned.
People are messy, love can build and destroy and it really never will be “just the two of us”. Everyone is affected by a love story, more often than not as obstacles because love never really runs smoothly. The women are more alike than they are different, each with unhealthy sides as much as strong ones. Some drag their pain like a dead horse behind them. Most secrets aren’t as hidden as they think. Some use secrets to keep people out, like Chloe with her demanding needy mother and others to shield others from pain but regardless of their reasons, it always hurts someone, mostly themselves. Each woman in this novel is as important as the other, be they the wife, daughter, lover, or enemy. Perfect for a book club and I know women, regardless of their ages, will not relate to the same characters, will champion one and damn the other. I don’t want to ruin the secrets. Provocative.
publication Date: June 4, 2018
Montague Street Press
'I guess I had been imagining it for a long time. After almost four years, I felt like I was a part of their family. I wished I was. And really, who could blame me?'
Jenna likes to tell stories, in fact she’s incredibly talented when it comes to fiction. Her skill is a gift that opens doors for her when she writes a story, The Adventures of Peanut Girl, for the little girl (Chloe) she babysits, one that happens to be the daughter of her pretend married boyfriend, John. She has problems within her own family when her parent’s split apart, enter Deirdre (or as her mother likes to call her, Jenna’s father’s ‘midlife crisis’). Life is complicated when lives running parallel begin to intersect. Deirdre is meant to remain simply the harlot, the evil other woman, but Deirdre in reality is more than just Andrew’s kept woman. She is a hardworking doctor, a sister to an exciting but exhausting twin brother (he also has a heavy story). She is also the catalyst for the hatred growing inside Joanne, one that damages the relationship between Jenna and her mother. She may be with Andrew, but ‘for Jenna’s sake’ he better keep that part of his life seperate if he wants to remain in his daughter’s life.
Jenna’s loyalty is constantly under scrutiny from her heartbroken mother, distraught by her husband’s betrayal. Maybe in a healthy world we all should try to bridge the poisonous distance rejection and cheating creates, and it’s easy with clear heads watching from the outside to see how anger takes its toll on the child, stuck in the middle, loving both parents, hunkering for stability. Unless it’s you harboring the wounded animal heart, dealing with the turbulence of your emotions that make you selfish and bitter, it’s easy to believe in embracing change, rising above the torment of your pain for the sake of your child. Women and men do it all the time, swallow their pride, attempt the grin and bear it approach and remain civil for the sake of the children’s emotional well-being. Then there is the other side, those who are stuck in fury and use the child as a pawn, whether intentionally or not. Jenna is caught up in the maelstrom of her mother’s wounded pride. The other woman is enough to make her spit nails, but what happens when Jenna begins to like Deirdre? How sick is it to pretend she doesn’t exist, that her father is meant to compartmentalize his love life from his family life? Is she meant to remain a phantom presence for all eternity just to spare her mother’s feelings, while Jenna is used as the reason? It isn’t long before Jenna herself mirrors Deirdre and her father’s relationship. She will understand all too well the obstacles and difficulties Deirdre dealt with in coming between a family.
Chloe’s mother has always shadowed her and to her father John’s mind, is a big reason he decides to remain married to Mara. Mara doesn’t have the sort of skin required for moving on, for abrupt changes, for divorce. John had been down that road before with his first wife Vivian and their boys. But there is something different, some hole inside of Mara that refuses to let go. The reader catches of glimpse of the cold, overbearing Mara as Jenna ‘pokes around’ their home, as she becomes intimately close with the family, even vacationing with them, mentored in a sense by John. But the story isn’t really about the men, who they love or don’t love, nor who remains the wife and who is the invisible lover. The women have pasts that color all of their relationships. Mara is coming undone, but Chloe is drifting further away, no longer feeling that mother/daughter bond.
Jenna thought her time waiting for love would be rewarded, and never imagined the ending fate created for her love story. When she begins to move on, her mother is always the one obstacle that cannot detach from the pain of the past, preventing even the simplest joys with her stubborn refusal to let go of her resentments. No one can imagine that her pain was set during her own childhood that began with the death of her own mother. Jenna keeps her secrets close too, messing up her new love with omissions, so as not to face the past she is trying to forget. Both are more similar than they know, trying to ignore painful points in their lives, yet unaware how much it affects the present.
Chloe (the peanut girl) comes of age and finds herself on the outside too, a ‘invisible woman’ but for a different reason than an affair. She is forbidden, an unaccepted shame to her lover’s family. Every relationship in this novel is complicated. Mara is deeply troubled, numb and disconnected in some ways and overly involved in others. Jenna is the main character who starts as a fanciful romantic teenager likely stunted by her own mother’s reaction to the break in her marriage, maybe John is a way of rebelling or maybe love is genuine, maybe she conjured a love story into being? But her little game with her friends sets the pace for her entire adulthood where men are concerned.
People are messy, love can build and destroy and it really never will be “just the two of us”. Everyone is affected by a love story, more often than not as obstacles because love never really runs smoothly. The women are more alike than they are different, each with unhealthy sides as much as strong ones. Some drag their pain like a dead horse behind them. Most secrets aren’t as hidden as they think. Some use secrets to keep people out, like Chloe with her demanding needy mother and others to shield others from pain but regardless of their reasons, it always hurts someone, mostly themselves. Each woman in this novel is as important as the other, be they the wife, daughter, lover, or enemy. Perfect for a book club and I know women, regardless of their ages, will not relate to the same characters, will champion one and damn the other. I don’t want to ruin the secrets. Provocative.
publication Date: June 4, 2018
Montague Street Press
May 12, 2018
While reading this book, I found that I really grew to care about the characters and how all their lives intersected. I enjoyed how you were not only drawn into their stories, but also how they truly felt about the things happening in their lives. This is definitely a book I’d choose for book club. There are many aspects to this book which could lead to in depth discussions. I strongly recommend.
April 28, 2018
I received an advance review copy of this book. All opinions are my own. I myself wonder sometimes how it is that I choose the books that I will read. Oh I know what genres I like. I know what authors I prefer but what is that elusive something that tells me that yes this is the book that I need to read right now. This is the book that I cannot put down because I am so pleasantly immersed in the plot and the wonderful three dimensional characters. A lot of the time it's the plot. Like in this case but for me specifically in this book it's the very first line and that rarely ever happens so when it does I know I am in for a very special treat and Jill D. Block didn't disappoint. This book meanders and it weaves here and there giving you glimpses of the lives of others while keeping Jenna in the front as the main character. I don't give out spoilers ever but definitely pre order this book. You'll thank yourself for ordering this gem of a book and I have a feeling that this is only the beginning of a fabulous career for this amazing author. Happy reading!
June 23, 2023
This book was out of my usual territory, but I enjoyed Jill Block's shorter works that appeared in a couple of anthologies edited by her father, Lawrence Block, and I wanted to see what she could do with a longer work. I made my way through the lives of her brilliant characters in one sitting -- grinning, chuckling, and shedding a few tears now and then. I am looking forward to seeing more of her work in the future!
June 21, 2018
The book starts with just a killer opening line: Holy shit! You're having sex with Mr. Peanut?!
How do you not keep reading after that?
I first encountered Jill Block when I saw that she had a story in her father's (Lawrence Block) anthology "In Sunlight or in Shadow (stories inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper)". Her name was listed among other contributors, including Joe Lansdale, Lee Child, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King and Lawrence Block. "Well, Larry", I thought. "You 're just a little nepot". And then, of course, her story turned out to be my favorite of the bunch.
This novel is about relationships, how they interconnect, and how we are all moving through life and the luckiest of us realize that these relationships are the most important part of the journey. It has multiple shifts from one character's point of view to another's. Each character is distinct, and each has their own separate baggage. Block manages to keep all of them bouncing off of each other over the course of forty years, and she keeps the reader interested in each and every one of them.
I look forward to her next novel.
How do you not keep reading after that?
I first encountered Jill Block when I saw that she had a story in her father's (Lawrence Block) anthology "In Sunlight or in Shadow (stories inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper)". Her name was listed among other contributors, including Joe Lansdale, Lee Child, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King and Lawrence Block. "Well, Larry", I thought. "You 're just a little nepot". And then, of course, her story turned out to be my favorite of the bunch.
This novel is about relationships, how they interconnect, and how we are all moving through life and the luckiest of us realize that these relationships are the most important part of the journey. It has multiple shifts from one character's point of view to another's. Each character is distinct, and each has their own separate baggage. Block manages to keep all of them bouncing off of each other over the course of forty years, and she keeps the reader interested in each and every one of them.
I look forward to her next novel.
July 12, 2018
Absolutely wonderful book. It is a fun, engaging read. The story following different characters, so you get to know everyone. Each story crosses paths with the other character and it always comes back to a logical point so you don't have that awkward, loose ends feeling. Every character is relatable and while you might not like everything they say & do, you can't help, but like them. I highly recommend this book.
July 5, 2018
The idea of very different lives of friends is a good one. Many of the characters were well understood. I had a problem with chapters being in different character voices and others being in different time periods. I think it is just my state of mind this week but it wasn't easy to follow
Free review copy from publisher for honest review
Free review copy from publisher for honest review
April 26, 2018
I was lucky to be an early reader. I loved this book!
July 12, 2018
Perfect book to start the summer. A fast, engaging read — i enjoyed how it followed the lives of the different characters over decades.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews