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A review by wordsmithlynn
Amy Falls Down by Jincy Willett
5.0
Curmudgeonly heroine Amy Gallup returns in Amy Falls Down , the delightful new book from her real-life alter ego, Jincy Willett.
Amy was a literary sensation in her youth, and now gets along by teaching writing classes at the local community college and online. In a previous book, Amy and her class dealt with a murderer in their midst. There's no mystery in the new book, but in its place, there's some brilliant, biting insight into the "instant celebrity" phenomenon of modern society.
After a bad fall in her garden, a mildly concussed Amy gives an interview to a worshipful admirer who works for the local newspaper. The barely coherent article gets circulated around the Internet and voila! Amy, who hasn't written a book in decades, is suddenly hailed as a contemporary philosopher and becomes a literary sensation again. She becomes a regular on NPR, speaks at assorted writers' conferences, and even makes a triumphant appearance on a Rush Limbaugh-like talk radio show. Along the way, Amy rediscovers her love for the written word, works through the lingering grief over the death of her first husband, and ultimately winds up playing second fiddle to an adorable and heroic basset hound named Alphonse.
Amy Falls Down is uproariously funny in places and it moved me to tears in others. Jincy Willett uses an ostensibly funny, lightweight story to sneak in some major truths about pop culture, the writing business, and life as a woman of a "certain age."
I loved it. Go read it now.
Amy was a literary sensation in her youth, and now gets along by teaching writing classes at the local community college and online. In a previous book, Amy and her class dealt with a murderer in their midst. There's no mystery in the new book, but in its place, there's some brilliant, biting insight into the "instant celebrity" phenomenon of modern society.
After a bad fall in her garden, a mildly concussed Amy gives an interview to a worshipful admirer who works for the local newspaper. The barely coherent article gets circulated around the Internet and voila! Amy, who hasn't written a book in decades, is suddenly hailed as a contemporary philosopher and becomes a literary sensation again. She becomes a regular on NPR, speaks at assorted writers' conferences, and even makes a triumphant appearance on a Rush Limbaugh-like talk radio show. Along the way, Amy rediscovers her love for the written word, works through the lingering grief over the death of her first husband, and ultimately winds up playing second fiddle to an adorable and heroic basset hound named Alphonse.
Amy Falls Down is uproariously funny in places and it moved me to tears in others. Jincy Willett uses an ostensibly funny, lightweight story to sneak in some major truths about pop culture, the writing business, and life as a woman of a "certain age."
I loved it. Go read it now.