Places to Stay the Night
A Novel
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A “sparkling” novel of love and loss from the bestselling author of Kitchen Yarns, “one of the best young writers in the world of contemporary fiction” (Booklist).
Libby Harper, unsatisfied with her suburban life, abandons Massachusetts, her two teenage children, and Tom, her husband of eighteen years. Depressed and feeling trapped, she is determined to realize her fantasies of Hollywood fame before it is too late.
Dana has been expecting her mother to walk out for years. Her older brother, Troy, who is always in trouble, has been struggling to get his mother’s attention for most of his life. But it is Tom, their father, who is hit the hardest. Once, he and Libby were the most beautiful couple in town. Rudderless without the woman he has loved since ninth grade, he is a man drowning when Renata Handy enters their lives.
Renata has left Manhattan behind to return home with her terminally ill eight-year-old daughter. She finds an unexpected haven with Tom Harper, her high-school crush—and his shattered family.
A Literary Guild selection, Places to Stay the Night is a story of the dreams we leave behind . . . and the ways we can find ourselves again.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Although often poignant and compelling, this novel of physical relocation and romantic musical chairs by the author of Something Blue is ultimately a promise unfulfilled. Libby Harper, disappointed with life in small-town Holly, Mass., heads out for the perceived possibilities of L.A., leaving her husband, Tom, and their teenage children, Dana and Troy. At the same time, Libby's high school classmate, Renata Handy, who had moved to Manhattan with equally big dreams, returns home to the healthier, more ``normal'' Holly when her eight-year-old daughter Millie is diagnosed with a brain tumor. In a flurry of indiscriminate and often mindless sex, Libby lands a part in a floor-wax commercial, Renata lands Tom, and Dana, in her own quest for something better, lands one night-stands with much of the male student body of nearby Williams College. At their best, Hood's descriptions of people and moods are right on target: a whiff of scent, a song, even a brand name prompts instant recognition. Many elements, however, ring false. Millie, for example, seems far too precocious (even for a New Yorker), and the wordplay is egregious (Libby, whose maiden name is Holliday, leaves Holly for Hollywood; her married name is Harper and she takes up with the husband of a harpist). While Hood's characters and situations have great potential to speak directly of love, discontent, compromise and belonging, their message is garbled. Literary Guild selection.
