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Careful Mistakes
Jilly, a 40-something, widowed mother finds out her daughter is pregnant on the day that her father dies. Wondering where Oprah is when you need her, Jilly battles with her mother-in-law, her lover and his eavesdropping son, and her own dearly loved daughter.
184 pages, Paperback
First published April 18, 1996
1 person want to read
About the author
Joyce Mandeville
3 books3 followersI live and write in a small village in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.
Joyce Mandeville, the author of five novels and many short stories, lives in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. She is currently published by Little, Brown UK.
I was born in Fresno California, but made my first attempt to leave when I was four. My mother thwarted my plot, but I can still recall having a clear sense that I didn't belong there. I yearned for forests and not those dry pine forests that were fifty miles from my home. I wanted the forests of the fairy tales I loved. I wanted the forests that held uncountable numbers of greens, mossy trails and ground that bubbled up water. About twenty years ago, when I was living in England, I went to Sweden, the country my father's family had left shortly before he was born. Standing on the deck of the ferry I looked up and saw the forests I'd been looking for all my life.
I don't recall the first time I said I wanted to be a writer, but a friend from high school, a man who is a distinguished poet, says he remembers me telling about my desire to write all those years ago. I'd always trusted him and I suppose I confessed this to him knowing that he wouldn't mock me. He was the only person I told for many years because it simply seemed too far fetched, too unobtainable for someone who had left college without a degree and usually picked up the phone rather than write a letter.
I didn't talk about writing, but the ideas kept boiling up when I least expected them and finally I sat down and wrote a novel about a time-traveling housewife with scholarly pretensions. Aren't we always told to write what we know? It didn't find a publisher and I became an interior decorator (an interior designer for my UK readers). I enjoyed the work, but I found that what I really loved was hearing people's stories. I'd sit with my clients for hours and chat and a number of them told me I should be a writer. After the twentieth or twenty-fifth client told me this, I once again wrote a book which became Careful Mistakes.
My husband was transferred to England and I started my relationship with Little, Brown, UK which has recently been re-kindled. (A wretched pun since the new editions are e-books and I beg your forgiveness.) While in England I published Glory Days and A Twist of Light.
Our return to the States was to a village in rural Vermont. After a few years of running an art gallery, I'm finally finding the time and space to write once again. I have two books awaiting publication and a few chapters of a book which I hope will complete my Vermont Trilogy.
And yes, we have wonderful forests here. I begin every morning with a hike in a forest that holds an uncountable number of greens, mossy trails and ground that bubbles up water. I am home.
Little, Brown will re-issue A Twist of Light, Careful Mistakes and Glory Days in June 2014.
Joyce Mandeville, the author of five novels and many short stories, lives in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. She is currently published by Little, Brown UK.
I was born in Fresno California, but made my first attempt to leave when I was four. My mother thwarted my plot, but I can still recall having a clear sense that I didn't belong there. I yearned for forests and not those dry pine forests that were fifty miles from my home. I wanted the forests of the fairy tales I loved. I wanted the forests that held uncountable numbers of greens, mossy trails and ground that bubbled up water. About twenty years ago, when I was living in England, I went to Sweden, the country my father's family had left shortly before he was born. Standing on the deck of the ferry I looked up and saw the forests I'd been looking for all my life.
I don't recall the first time I said I wanted to be a writer, but a friend from high school, a man who is a distinguished poet, says he remembers me telling about my desire to write all those years ago. I'd always trusted him and I suppose I confessed this to him knowing that he wouldn't mock me. He was the only person I told for many years because it simply seemed too far fetched, too unobtainable for someone who had left college without a degree and usually picked up the phone rather than write a letter.
I didn't talk about writing, but the ideas kept boiling up when I least expected them and finally I sat down and wrote a novel about a time-traveling housewife with scholarly pretensions. Aren't we always told to write what we know? It didn't find a publisher and I became an interior decorator (an interior designer for my UK readers). I enjoyed the work, but I found that what I really loved was hearing people's stories. I'd sit with my clients for hours and chat and a number of them told me I should be a writer. After the twentieth or twenty-fifth client told me this, I once again wrote a book which became Careful Mistakes.
My husband was transferred to England and I started my relationship with Little, Brown, UK which has recently been re-kindled. (A wretched pun since the new editions are e-books and I beg your forgiveness.) While in England I published Glory Days and A Twist of Light.
Our return to the States was to a village in rural Vermont. After a few years of running an art gallery, I'm finally finding the time and space to write once again. I have two books awaiting publication and a few chapters of a book which I hope will complete my Vermont Trilogy.
And yes, we have wonderful forests here. I begin every morning with a hike in a forest that holds an uncountable number of greens, mossy trails and ground that bubbles up water. I am home.
Little, Brown will re-issue A Twist of Light, Careful Mistakes and Glory Days in June 2014.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 7, 2025
Jilly, long time widow, America, and somewhere around 40 is hit with a chaotic turn of events. For months Jilly has been looking after her retired bishop father, as his life comes to an end her daughter makes it just in time to say goodbye. Death fills the atmosphere and if that wasn't suffocating enough, Chloe, Jilly's daughter, drops the bombshell that she is pregnant. Though faced with so much, Jilly fights through it all, the funeral, the services, the endless swarm of jobs that death brings, the responsibility of her daughter and worst of all, her pestering mother-in-law that she simply can't stand. Despite this fight and bottomless well of chaos, Jilly is not alone, for she has her loving friend Susan, supportive daughter Chloe, and her gentleman friend Elliott. In her own time, Jilly realizes that after a life dedicated to being a daughter, a mother, and a partner that she needs to spread her wings and live a life of her own.
Careful Mistakes has tones of grief, love, loss, and new beginnings.
It is a very much woman based book, in the sense that as the story progresses the reader is given glimpses of the lives and choices of numerous women. Each woman has her own story whether it be about their experience with pregnancy, children and motherhood or their lives as wives and partners. No matter the story behind each of the woman in this book, Joyce Mandeville touches on womanly subjects that even in her writing we see society be hushed about.
A topic that may come as a trigger warning to some, is abortion.
When this particular topic was introduced I thought Mandeville had layered the dialogue, scenes, and character opinions following quite well. Just like life there are characters that disagree with this topic and those who aren't as hostile. We see how Jilly and Chloe, mother and daughter, deal with the situation and I particularly liked how Jilly's thoughts had been implemented on the subject, it seemed to add realism showing how it affected other characters just how it would affect other people in real life.
This book shines a light on the duty that women have and how despite smiles and polite manners everything isn't quite as picture perfect as it appears to be. I think this is one on the major qualities of this book, Joyce has written something that captures the situations that women have to go through in life with such a raw and real touch.
Jilly is a strong woman who has lived her life for everyone else but herself. It was inspiring to see her acknowledge, in the face of chaos, where her life had taken her, and with this acknowledgement change her future. A future she can live for herself.
As far as trigger warnings go I'd say the main ones are: abortion, death, and perhaps religion.
I know the first two I have listed aren't always topics people want to read and are probably generic trigger warnings.
I've put religion as a trigger warning as I know that religion always seems to be one of those subjects that can be the very reason you put a book down or even pick one up, either way, it's not always something people enjoy reading.
Careful Mistakes has tones of grief, love, loss, and new beginnings.
It is a very much woman based book, in the sense that as the story progresses the reader is given glimpses of the lives and choices of numerous women. Each woman has her own story whether it be about their experience with pregnancy, children and motherhood or their lives as wives and partners. No matter the story behind each of the woman in this book, Joyce Mandeville touches on womanly subjects that even in her writing we see society be hushed about.
A topic that may come as a trigger warning to some, is abortion.
When this particular topic was introduced I thought Mandeville had layered the dialogue, scenes, and character opinions following quite well. Just like life there are characters that disagree with this topic and those who aren't as hostile. We see how Jilly and Chloe, mother and daughter, deal with the situation and I particularly liked how Jilly's thoughts had been implemented on the subject, it seemed to add realism showing how it affected other characters just how it would affect other people in real life.
This book shines a light on the duty that women have and how despite smiles and polite manners everything isn't quite as picture perfect as it appears to be. I think this is one on the major qualities of this book, Joyce has written something that captures the situations that women have to go through in life with such a raw and real touch.
Jilly is a strong woman who has lived her life for everyone else but herself. It was inspiring to see her acknowledge, in the face of chaos, where her life had taken her, and with this acknowledgement change her future. A future she can live for herself.
As far as trigger warnings go I'd say the main ones are: abortion, death, and perhaps religion.
I know the first two I have listed aren't always topics people want to read and are probably generic trigger warnings.
I've put religion as a trigger warning as I know that religion always seems to be one of those subjects that can be the very reason you put a book down or even pick one up, either way, it's not always something people enjoy reading.
Displaying 1 of 1 review