03/17/2014
In Fishman's latest (Saving Ruth), a former marketing director uproots her life in Brooklyn, New York to move to Farmwood, Virginia for her husband's new teaching position, thinking it's the perfect opportunity to slow down and discover what she wants out of life. Sarah already knows what her husband wants, "Whenever Josh brought up babies, a giant clock descended from the sky and hovered over my head like a UFO," but finding herself proves harder than overcoming her fear of driving. While Josh finds contentment being a professor for a small liberal arts college, Sarah struggles through driving lessons, missing her best friend Mona, finding work that isn't menial, and ignoring her husband's booming biological clock. When Mona is diagnosed with cervical cancer, Sarah uproots her life once more to return to New York and care for her friend. While there, Sarah connects with her sister-in-law and falls in love with her baby nephew, witnessing firsthand the joy and exhaustion of being a new mom. As one friend faces the possibility of never having children, and another acclimates to the intense ups and downs of motherhood, Sarah faces her biggest fear and decides what she wants. While the ending won't shock, Fishman effectively balances humor and tension, crafting an involving portrayal of three women coping with the idea and obstacles of motherhood. Agent: Mollie Glick, Foundry Literary. (Apr.)
At turns funny and poignant, Driving Lessons is a refreshingly honest and insightful story of a woman whose questions about the direction of her life follow her from the big city to small country roads.” — Meg Donohue, author of All The Summer Girls
A wonderful, witty, and heartfelt journey through some of life’s biggest challenges: marriage, moving, making babies and more — Jessica Anya Blau, author of The Wonder Bread Summer
“A charming and warm story about new adventures and old friends and how this likable heroine learns to embrace them both.” — Shelly Noble, NYT bestselling author of Beach Colors
“Insightful and emotionally astute…Fishman demonstrates a rare gift for illuminating the interior lives of women with honesty, generosity and a whole lot of heart.” — Jillian Medoff, bestselling author of Hunger Point
“Fishman effectively balances humor and tension, crafting an involving portrayal of three women coping with the idea and obstacles of motherhood.” — Publishers Weekly
“Fishman’s sweetly told tale will resonate with readers who desire change in their lives, but it will also touch the hearts of others… believable and authentic.” — RT Book Reviews
Fishman’s sweetly told tale will resonate with readers who desire change in their lives, but it will also touch the hearts of others… believable and authentic.
A wonderful, witty, and heartfelt journey through some of life’s biggest challenges: marriage, moving, making babies and more
Insightful and emotionally astute…Fishman demonstrates a rare gift for illuminating the interior lives of women with honesty, generosity and a whole lot of heart.
A charming and warm story about new adventures and old friends and how this likable heroine learns to embrace them both.
At turns funny and poignant, Driving Lessons is a refreshingly honest and insightful story of a woman whose questions about the direction of her life follow her from the big city to small country roads.
2014-03-19
A New Yorker's move to the South generates life lessons, and far too many platitudes, in Fishman's (Saving Ruth, 2012, etc.) third novel. Sarah, 36, doesn't mind moving from Brooklyn to Virginia, trailing her husband, Josh, who's been offered a professorship. She's burned out on her high-powered marketing job at a cosmetics firm; her snide, short-tempered boss; and her tiny walk-up apartment. Perhaps living in suburban Farmwood will help her come to grips with life's burning questions: What next? What was she put on this earth to do? Now that she has time off work, but limited time left on her biological clock, should she and Josh procreate before it's too late? For a while, this seems to be a fish-out-of-water Manhattan transplant story: Living in a public-transportation desert, Sarah needs to overcome her fear of driving, and she needs to get out of the house. At Farmwood's closest approximation of a shopping district (a tacky strip mall), she finds a job at a kitschy costume-jewelry shop, Bauble Head. And she takes driving lessons from a man in a mouse-mobile. (Don't ask.) Before these veins of potential humor can be tapped, though, Sarah's back in Brooklyn, nursing her best friend, Mona, who has cancer and must undergo a hysterectomy. Mona is worried that her new boyfriend, Nate, will flee when Mona tells him she can't have kids. While Mona has carpe diem, pre-surgery sex with Nate, Sarah babysits for Josh's brother Ben and his wife. Ignoring both the chaos introduced by her newborn nephew's arrival and her sister-in-law's graphic warnings about labor, Sarah loses all her reservations about motherhood—never convincingly portrayed—as soon as her period is delayed. Any conflict is further dulled by endless stretches of preachy dialogue as the characters discuss, but never seriously debate, assorted parenthood issues. What begins as a witty critique of the Mommy Trap ends as a sanctimonious screed.
