Mary and O'Neil
by Justin Cronin
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Book Summary Information
Author: Justin CroninEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-02-06
ISBN: 0385333587
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: The Dial Press
Book Reviews of Mary and O'Neil
Book Review: The Sentimental Realist
Summary: 4 Stars
Cronin, on the LaSalle faculty page, describes himself as an "unrepentant Realist with a sentimental streak." I think Cronin knows himself very well, because that's Mary and O'Neil in a nutshell, and the book's high points and low points corollate highly with these two rather divergent characteristics.
There was much I admired and loved about this book. Cronin's language is exquisite, his descriptive powers incredible, and the strongest part of this book may be his intelligent choice of scenes. For example, there's the story about Mary's pregnancy, and it ends right before she tells her husband, and it couldn't have been more perfect. This was the exact place where the scene (and the story) should have ended, and Cronin nailed it. He does this again and again, and for this alone this book is worth a second reading.
What weakens M&O is Cronin's sentimental streak. When I read the end of "Orphans," the second story, I asked myself how I'd suddenly stepped into a Julia Roberts movie. This unfortunately happens on more than one occasion, but hey, I knew this going in, so you might brace yourself for some unmitigated sappiness if that isn't your cup of tea.
Although this book is labeled a "Novel in Stories," it reads more like a novel than an "arc" of short stories, like Denis Johnson's "Jesus's Son" or Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried." The plotting and the relationship between stories is way tighter than those two works.
I enjoyed the first one the most, "The Last of the Leaves." It is perfection.
Summary of Mary and O'Neil
A luminous work of fiction that celebrates the uncommon in common lives, and the redemptive power of love.Mary and O'Neil frequently marveled at how, of all the lives they might have led, they had somehow found this one together. When they met at the Philadelphia high school where they'd come to teach, each had suffered a profound loss that had not healed. How likely was it that they could learn to trust, much less love, again?
In Justin Cronin's tender, heartwise debut, eight stories trace the lives of these two vulnerable young people as they rediscover in each other a world alive with promise and hope.
From the formative experiences of their early adulthood to marriage, parenthood, and beyond, each chapter illuminates the moments of grace that enable Mary and O'Neil to make peace with the deep emotional legacies that haunt them: the sudden, mysterious death of O'Neil's parents, Mary's long-ago decision to end a pregnancy, O'Neil's sister's battle with illness and a troubled marriage.
Like the work of Alice Hoffman, Cronin's fiction resonates with magical nuance and unexpected encounters -- a beautiful young girl who appears to Mary one night, draped in a cloud of stars; an autistic child who reveals a life-changing secret; a woman O'Neil mistakenly dials the night their first child is born -- that edify this young couple's intimate bond and affirm their faith in the future.
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