{"id":8247,"date":"2019-11-04T12:03:16","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T12:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=8247"},"modified":"2019-11-11T12:28:05","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T12:28:05","slug":"right-after-the-weather-by-carol-anshaw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=8247","title":{"rendered":"Right After the Weather by Carol Anshaw"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Atria Books US\/Fig Tree UK<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 October 2019\/13 February 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n

288pp, hardcover, $27<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Incest, attempted rape, manslaughter, conspiracy theories \u2013 there\u2019s no shortage of plot dynamics in Anshaw\u2019s latest novel. But this is neither a thriller nor a sensational piece of crime fiction, instead a witty and rather perceptive consideration of relationships both sexual and platonic, a tracing of the arc of life from the midpoint, and thoughts about how early expectations of fulfilment might have to be modified.<\/p>\n

Set in Chicago just after the election of Donald Trump, it\u2019s the story of lesbian set-designer Cate, a middle-aged, middle-class white woman with an ex-husband Graham \u2013 currently camping in her spare bedroom \u2013 a best friend Neale, an unavailable lover Dana and a new girlfriend Maureen, who is supposedly Plan C for a future of settled contentment but who is revealing disturbing signs of incompatibility.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While juggling these connections, Cate must also deal with her critical mother\u2019s disappointments and work hard to support herself, whatever the quality of the theatrical production she\u2019s hired to furnish.<\/p>\n

Shrewd, rueful and often solitary, Cate is an appealing central figure whose ambitions and disenchantments might tend toward the universal. She has a tender heart for those she loves, both human and animal, and a brain that takes its time comprehending and digesting events from left field.<\/p>\n

And left field is the direction of incoming activity, firstly an invitation to create the sets for a prestigious play about Vita Sackville-West to be staged in New York, and second an act of violence inflicted on one of those closest to Cate.<\/p>\n

Life\u2019s paths are rarely predictable, and this is another lesson for Cate to learn, when heroism turns sour and disruptive, leaving trauma in its wake.<\/p>\n

Anshaw\u2019s novel cheerfully eschews the happy ever after. Neither literary nor a potboiler, this is instead an immersive modern tale of survival as a single woman, with a lot of interior-design observation stirred into the proceedings. A treat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Elsbeth Lindner<\/p>\n

Neither a thriller nor a sensational piece of crime fiction,this is instead a witty and rather perceptive consideration of relationships both sexual and platonic, a tracing of the arc of life from the midpoint, and thoughts about how early expectations of fulfilment might have to be modified […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-notable-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8247"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8252,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8247\/revisions\/8252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}