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bibliobrandie's review against another edition
1.0
I read this for book club and I really did not like it. I wouldn't have finished it had it not been a book club pick. The writing is not great, the characters are awful. I think the idea was interesting and could have made for a really great short story, but as as 300+ page novel, you just bogged down in the details. I had a hard time believing that this woman, Agnes, would carry around the guilt for 40 plus years. I hated every word I had to read in Heidi's voice. She was the most unlikeable character I have ever read. Yeah, just no.
Spoiler
It was interesting to make the victim the unlikeable character, but Gordon takes it too far so that you really just can't stand her. Also just fully annoyed that Heidi would hold a grudge and all this anger against Agnes but I guess her shitty parents, her brother who stole her fortune, and the man who actually raped her, gets a pass. And then *and then* Heidi has spent her whole life wreaking revenge and imagining the day she gets to avenge herself and she finally gets her chance to get her "payback" from Agnes and she CUTS DOWN SOME TREES?!? What a lame ending.khornstein1's review against another edition
3.0
For Book Club...Some really interesting thoughts here about revenge, forgiveness, memory, and guilt. The first section set in the 1970's was great. The sections that follow seemed clumsily written to me. It's kind of a concept book (what would happen if a reality TV star went back in time to confront someone who harmed her?) that didn't entirely work as a novel. Some beautiful passages.
hultqur's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
lazygal's review against another edition
4.0
The reality YouTube show "Payback" doesn't sound so far from something we could watch today: someone wronged gets some sort of payback from the person that wronged them. The example we're given, though, doesn't quite work out, with the wrongdoer being apologetic and regretful, but unable to do anything to make reparations. That doesn't stop Quin Archer, host and brains behind the series - she's going to get payback from the woman who ruined her life.
That woman, Agnes, was a young art teacher and (as was usual in the 1970s) not trained in dealing with troubled students. Back then, Quin was known as Heidi, and when she goes to Agnes for consolation or help, Agnes makes a horrific verbal mistake. She's regretted it ever since.
The meeting between the two and how Quin's payback unfolds is beautifully nuanced. There were times I wondered how I would react to a student from years ago coming back with such a grudge, that's I'd made an inadvertent mistake that literally changed the course of their lives (not for the better). Are there students out there who feel such hate for me? If this book doesn't make readers - teachers and non-teachers alike - think about that, they read a different book than I did.
eARC provided by publisher.
That woman, Agnes, was a young art teacher and (as was usual in the 1970s) not trained in dealing with troubled students. Back then, Quin was known as Heidi, and when she goes to Agnes for consolation or help, Agnes makes a horrific verbal mistake. She's regretted it ever since.
The meeting between the two and how Quin's payback unfolds is beautifully nuanced. There were times I wondered how I would react to a student from years ago coming back with such a grudge, that's I'd made an inadvertent mistake that literally changed the course of their lives (not for the better). Are there students out there who feel such hate for me? If this book doesn't make readers - teachers and non-teachers alike - think about that, they read a different book than I did.
eARC provided by publisher.
madfoot's review against another edition
5.0
Nobody writes about motherhood like Mary Gordon. It’s not the main thrust of this novel at all, but it’s so beautiful and striking.
fauxbot's review against another edition
1.0
The premise of this book was a good one - IF the cause for the "payback" was worthy. Because it wasn't, it came off as a whiny, self-absorbed book where the author uses the characters to air her viewpoints on life in general. The narrator of this on didn't do it any favors as well.
Skip it.
Skip it.
the_old_gray_cat's review against another edition
2.0
The prose is beautiful, but I didn't care for this book. I think Gordon made a mistake making one of her two main characters so thoroughly unlikeable. I could imagine Gordon herself curling up her lip as she savaged her own creation. A conflict is more meaningful if we can feel for the characters on both sides.
The main success of the book is that it does make the reader think about atonement. Is it possible to make up for a terrible thing one has done, or should one do nothing, as some things can't be fixed? Gordon's characters take different views on the topic.
The main success of the book is that it does make the reader think about atonement. Is it possible to make up for a terrible thing one has done, or should one do nothing, as some things can't be fixed? Gordon's characters take different views on the topic.
onceandfuturereads's review against another edition
emotional
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The characters and characterization is incredible. I felt like I knew Quin and Agnes, like they were real. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator is 🤌🏻 This is my first Mary Gordon but will not be my last.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
Moderate: Homophobia
krismcd59's review against another edition
5.0
My review of this book appears in Historical Novels Review issue 94 (November 2020):
Author/memoirist Gordon’s award-winning fiction often focuses on generational tensions and damage, and particularly the fraught relationships between mothers and daughters. She ramps up the conflict in this exploration of a reality-TV star’s plot to expose and punish her high school art teacher for a thoughtless comment 40 years before.
Heidi Stolz/Quin Archer is a thinly veiled Trump avatar (the 2016 election is mentioned frequently as a watershed event); she’s a child of privilege and emotional abuse, a devotee of Ayn Rand, who sees all relationships as transactional, and who believes what most would call virtue is actually weakness. Her carefully curated appearance, her cruelty, her self-serving interior monologues, are designed to cause revulsion in most readers. The art teacher, Agnes Vaughan di Pietro, seems at first to be Heidi’s mirror image: she’s empathetic, sensitive, and intensely moral. Gordon alternates the two protagonists carefully, allowing each a long narration of her life story before bringing them into collision, so that the reader can fully appreciate Agnes’s intense, lifelong guilt over the wrong she did Heidi (the novel’s action spans the years 1972-2018). The contrasting points of view invite the reader to compare one character who is everything we’re supposed to value — art, love, introspection — to another who is everything we’re supposed to reject — narcissism, vindictiveness, greed. But is Agnes’ self-absorption in her own guilt any less narcissistic? And is Heidi’s version of reality TV any less art? The conclusion is as surprising as it is suspenseful.
Gordon’s masterful structure and sense of voice create an intensely moving meditation on the relationship of the past self and its deeds to the present, as well as a brilliant evocation of the emotional impact of aging on women’s lives and identities.
Author/memoirist Gordon’s award-winning fiction often focuses on generational tensions and damage, and particularly the fraught relationships between mothers and daughters. She ramps up the conflict in this exploration of a reality-TV star’s plot to expose and punish her high school art teacher for a thoughtless comment 40 years before.
Heidi Stolz/Quin Archer is a thinly veiled Trump avatar (the 2016 election is mentioned frequently as a watershed event); she’s a child of privilege and emotional abuse, a devotee of Ayn Rand, who sees all relationships as transactional, and who believes what most would call virtue is actually weakness. Her carefully curated appearance, her cruelty, her self-serving interior monologues, are designed to cause revulsion in most readers. The art teacher, Agnes Vaughan di Pietro, seems at first to be Heidi’s mirror image: she’s empathetic, sensitive, and intensely moral. Gordon alternates the two protagonists carefully, allowing each a long narration of her life story before bringing them into collision, so that the reader can fully appreciate Agnes’s intense, lifelong guilt over the wrong she did Heidi (the novel’s action spans the years 1972-2018). The contrasting points of view invite the reader to compare one character who is everything we’re supposed to value — art, love, introspection — to another who is everything we’re supposed to reject — narcissism, vindictiveness, greed. But is Agnes’ self-absorption in her own guilt any less narcissistic? And is Heidi’s version of reality TV any less art? The conclusion is as surprising as it is suspenseful.
Gordon’s masterful structure and sense of voice create an intensely moving meditation on the relationship of the past self and its deeds to the present, as well as a brilliant evocation of the emotional impact of aging on women’s lives and identities.