Leavitt applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Cruel Beautiful World, and reported the following:From page 69:Learn more about the book and author at Caroline Leavitt's website and blog.Iris saw how her mother suffered, how her sadness seeped through the walls, held there like a stain. “He’ll be back,” her mother said. Every week, she still went to the beauty parlor because she wanted to look her best for when he came back. She wore makeup and dresses and cooked elaborate roasts, because any night could be the night he was coming back, and wouldn’t he want something delicious to eat? Every day when Iris came home from school, her mother was at the kitchen table, looking at the society pages, and Iris never knew why until one day she came home and found her mother crying, and then saw the photo of the young, pretty bride in the white gown, and her father standing behind her. Iris saw how the bride was twenty-three. Ten years younger than Iris’ mother.Page 69 of Cruel Beautiful World is about Iris, the elderly adoptive mom of sisters Charlotte and Lucy. Iris is telling us about how her mother couldn't let go of Iris’ father, even when he left both of them, quickly going into a new family with a younger wife. So it is and isn’t like the rest of the book. It isn’t in that Lucy’s running away to a back to the land paradise that turns into nightmare, and Charlotte’s trying to find her is the main story. But it is in the emotions. People loving and trusting the wrong persons. People trying to fix something that cannot be fixed, no matter what you do.
The Page 69 Test: Pictures of You.
My Book, the Movie: Pictures of You.
The Page 69 Test: Is This Tomorrow.
My Book, The Movie: Is This Tomorrow.
My Book, The Movie: Cruel Beautiful World.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
