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153rd out of 297 books
—
493 voters
The House on Fortune Street
It seems like mutual good luck for Abigail Taylor and Dara MacLeod when they meet at St. Andrews University and, despite their differences, become fast friends. Years later they remain an unlikely pair. Abigail, an actress who confidently uses her charms both on- and offstage, believes herself immune to love. Dara, a counselor, is convinced that everyone is inescapably mar...more
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published
May 6th 2008
by Harper
(first published January 1st 2008)
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Livesey is exploring the disconnect the exists between our unstated private desires and feelings and the desires/feelings we choose to present to the world and the harm it does. Using four different characters (each one connected to a British author - Keats, Lewis Carroll, Charlotte Bronte/Virginia Woolf, and Charles Dickens - who know each other she explores the assumptions they (and we as readers) make and the consequences of those assumptions. I thought is was an extremely skillful book, that...more
I'd give this one 4.5 stars. Well-written with compelling intertwining narratives told from four different perspectives, the central ones being Abigail (a confident, overachieving actress/theatrical producer with a hard-edged personality) and her college friend Dara (a less confident, emotionally intense therapist who's been unsuccessful in relationships). Surprisingly, though, the book starts with Sean, Abigail's boyfriend, a long-suffering perfectionist grad student unable to finish his disser...more
I have just finished reading this book. I feel like my insides have been turned-out and thrown on the sidewalk. I want to weep long and hard for Dara, even though she is nothing more than a fictional creation of Margot Livesey's mind. That perhaps, speaks, to the power of Livesey's work. The novel is broken into four parts; each part is presented from the perspective of a different character. We learn about each individual's life and then how each of them sees the same event/s that form the core...more
Feb 05, 2009
Bookmarks Magazine
added it
Livesey, a professor at Emerson College in Boston, is a master of character development. She evokes her subjects' lives and multilayered emotional states so vividly that commonplace scenes contain novelty and tension. Though the story is divided into four self-contained sections, each narrated by a different character, critics were pleased to note that Livesey adeptly maintains control of the intricate plot. Most were charmed by her vibrant prose, sparkling with clarity and insight, and her freq
...more
This book was very similar to Olive Kitteridge in that it gives several different perspectives of people with intersecting lives. Again, it makes me sad to see their futile attempts to piece together a meaningful existence and their brokenness- so evident in the decisions they make and the directions their lives are steered in.
But I also couldn't put it down. I found myself wanting to read more and hoping for a redeeming moment that made all their suffering worthwhile- that maybe they would lea...more
But I also couldn't put it down. I found myself wanting to read more and hoping for a redeeming moment that made all their suffering worthwhile- that maybe they would lea...more
This was a deftly constructed novel that nonetheless failed to interest me deeply in most of its characters. Four sections focus on the four main characters, but only the first-person narrative of Dara's father Cameron really held my attention and prompted my sympathy. The opening section about Sean, a PhD student who has left his wife to live with the beautiful and talented but not very lovable Abigail, gave me a mild dislike of both Sean (presented as so weak-willed and vacillating) and Abigai...more
Full disclosure: I have studied with Margot and like her personally. I also happen to enjoy her novels.
This book engages with Jane Eyre among other works. It is not a direct answer to it (or any of the other books involved) in the way that others including Jean Rhys's superb Wide Sargasso Sea are. Instead, it engages more subtly, evoking the primary characters through a corresponding literary work. In some ways this is a book about people who read, but it is also a book about people who love in...more
This book engages with Jane Eyre among other works. It is not a direct answer to it (or any of the other books involved) in the way that others including Jean Rhys's superb Wide Sargasso Sea are. Instead, it engages more subtly, evoking the primary characters through a corresponding literary work. In some ways this is a book about people who read, but it is also a book about people who love in...more
I had enjoyed Livesey's Eva Moves the Furniture, so decided to pick up the advance reading copy of The House on Fortune Street when I stumbled upon it in the ALA conference exhibits several years ago. It languished on the bookshelf until I picked it up again to get me through a couple days in bed with a cold. And I'm glad I did. It is a well-written engrossing book of intertwined lives and how actions and secrets of others can have unforeseen consequences across relationships and generations. Th...more
An surprising study of four connected people and the secrets that both bind and separate. This book was on the Entertainment Weekly list of the top fiction of the year; intrigued, I picked it up, for while I had purchased it for the Library, it hadn't really registered on my radar. As I started the novel, I wondered why it had made such an impression; the story begins with Sean, an academic who can't work on his dissertation, has become somewhat unhappy with the woman he left his wife for, etc....more
1 like · like · see review
Although the prose in this book is normally a style I really like; sparse and straightforward, the characters are just very difficult to get along with. We have 4 narratives in this book, and it is too much, probably because of the stultifying amount of heavy subjects the author goes into. I had no idea, and if I did I would not have chosen this book, the themes this book would cover. I don't shy away from a difficult read, infact I usually prefer it. A couple of them on their own would have bee...more
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Margot Livesey can write. Her keen characterizations and gift of descriptive detail remind me of Anne Tyler or Ian McEwan. Which is no small praise.
This is a book about the secrets we keep from one another, and the devastating, corrosive effects those secrets can have. Told in four parts--each focusing on a different character--the story entwines and doubles back quite a bit, like a fragmented collage whose ultimate impact is only realized at the end. These are not bad people, and yet they hurt...more
This is a book about the secrets we keep from one another, and the devastating, corrosive effects those secrets can have. Told in four parts--each focusing on a different character--the story entwines and doubles back quite a bit, like a fragmented collage whose ultimate impact is only realized at the end. These are not bad people, and yet they hurt...more
I loved Margot Livesey's earlier books so much (introduced to her by fabulous Grace), but I was scared away from reading her more recent ones by a really bad review in the NY Times book review. Maybe this should teach me not to pay so much attention to reviews? The review wasn't actually of this book, but her previous one, Banishing Verona. And The House on Fortune Street is so incredibly good, moving, sad, surprising, that now I may go out and read Banishing Verona, too, in spite of the Times....more
The NYTBR inexplicaby refers to this as a book about "spinsters" even though two of the main sections are narrated by men and even though....the book has nothing at all to do with "spinsters"; nor is it a treatise on women choosing not to marry. Nor is it, as they also say, a Rashomonlike tale.
So, what is it? Told in four discreet sections by two male and two female characters, it is a disquisition on loneliness and isolation and, most important, the secrets we fear to share because...we fear, s...more
So, what is it? Told in four discreet sections by two male and two female characters, it is a disquisition on loneliness and isolation and, most important, the secrets we fear to share because...we fear, s...more
It is my good fortune to have discovered Margot Livesey’s The House on Fortune Street. It has many of the things I love in a book: a London setting, allusions to British Literature, precise and lyrical language and a mesmerizing story. Yum.
The titular house is owned by Abigail, who bought it with money inherited from an aunt. Her best friend from college, Dara, lives on the first floor. Dara is actually the center of the story - the three other main characters all have a connection with her. The...more
The titular house is owned by Abigail, who bought it with money inherited from an aunt. Her best friend from college, Dara, lives on the first floor. Dara is actually the center of the story - the three other main characters all have a connection with her. The...more
I picked up this novel on the Friday before the long weekend. I was going up to Maine to spend a few days in my in-laws cabin on a pond, and I wanted a novel that would absorb me. And this one fit the bill. Sometimes when a book gets excellent reviews from the top book critics, I personally find the novel boring. But this book earned rave reviews, and was suspenseful and engaging. It's told from four characters' points of view: Sean, a divorced student living with his former mistress, Abigail, a...more
The book has four sections describing four different versions of the same events as experienced by the four main characters, who are related by blood, marriage or friendship. Each character's temperament and personal history colors his or her experience of the same event and fleshes out the relationship of the four people to each other.
The book got off to a very slow start for me. I didn't get the point of Sean's story at all. He seemed like a loser, largely due to his own choices, unwilling to...more
The book got off to a very slow start for me. I didn't get the point of Sean's story at all. He seemed like a loser, largely due to his own choices, unwilling to...more
Wasn't completely hooked at the beginning - I was thrown off because the book starts with Sean's section, whereas the flap copy made it seem like the friendship between the two girls, Dara and Abigail, was central - but I got more interested partway through Sean's section, and I loved Cameron's, Dara's, and Abigail's. The four sections, from four different points of view (with no switching back and forth, but pieces falling into place and making sense throughout), give the reader to understand h...more
A tragedy occurs which affects four characters, and in this novel (really four interlocking novellas), each character has a narrative which sheds new light on the tragedy. The characters are Sean, a doctoral student struggling with whether or not to continue his dissertation after seven years of limited progress; Sean’s live-in girlfriend, Abigail, whose feelings for Sean are far more transient than Sean’s passion for her; their downstairs neighbor, Dara, Abigail’s best friend from college and a...more
I probably would have just put it down were I not reading this for class. I think Livesey relied (way WAY) too heavily on literary analogs for her characters to the point where they were no longer believable (especially Abigail). There were many times when I rolled my eyes at things that the characters said or did because they were remarkably "entitled" and not at all real to me. (view spoiler)...more
This book was the perfect segue from the mayhem of final exam week to the ease of summer! Even after spending a long, grueling night grading research papers with the knowledge that I had get up in a few hours, I still wanted to crawl into bed with my flashlight and read this book as long as I could keep myself awake.
The House on Fortune Street is suspenseful and compelling. It's filled with enough allusions to Dickens and Bronte to keep the literature lover engaged without being heavy handed. A...more
The House on Fortune Street is suspenseful and compelling. It's filled with enough allusions to Dickens and Bronte to keep the literature lover engaged without being heavy handed. A...more
Well, I don't know what's wrong with me but I hated this book. I found the writing so utterly dull I could barely stay awake. The structure was interesting and the references to the four novelists helped string the narrative along, but I could have cared less about these self-involved characters and found it utter drudgery to go back and finish the book. They were so two-dimensional and their motivations so predictable. Of course Abigail is a brilliant actor, of course she gets a scholarship to...more
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I am in a rut. Every book I pick up is a collection of stories. What's sad is I am by now trying to avoid them but failing. The last four books I have read fit this form, loosely. The House on Fortune Street is the best of the group, but I am ready for a novel with a beginning, middle and end in just that order, and one voice, please.
To be fair, this book was wonderful, and had I read it first, I think I would have stopped the others after fifteen pages as not worth my time. I don't think this...more
To be fair, this book was wonderful, and had I read it first, I think I would have stopped the others after fifteen pages as not worth my time. I don't think this...more
I must shamefacedly admit that I confused Margot Livesey with Penelope Lively when I purchased this book! After having read The House on Fortune Street however, I can only thank serendipity for my own confusion because it was a brilliant and moving novel. Told from the perspective of four different characters, Sean, Cameron, Dara and Abigail, we learn what leads up to the central, tragic event that occurs a short way into the book. Each of the characters has a literary godfather or godmother: Se...more
i am very unsure of what i think about this book. The reason for Cameron leaving is one that has unsetteled me. I feel it was a gratuitous use of a very serious issue and that the 'benefits' for the novel were not large enough to make it worth using. But i kow many would disagree with me.
the relatinship between Dara and Abigail was, I thought, very true and real. The technique of having four interwoven narratives gave the reader a opportunity to see the whys of the relationship from different po...more
the relatinship between Dara and Abigail was, I thought, very true and real. The technique of having four interwoven narratives gave the reader a opportunity to see the whys of the relationship from different po...more
This is a story of four characters who are damaged from childhood disasters that have molded them. They have numerous close relationships (mostly sexual), but none of them can sustain relationships. This has been done so many times – 20-somethings moving in and out of relationships while trying to make sense of and deal with the traumas of their pasts. Much of the book feels like the reader has read it many times before, although even in the shop-worn parts the author inserts unexpected and fres...more
A wonderful book. It is an overlapping story told from four different perspectives. Each of the characters lives are shaped by childhood events as well as fate. Very well written - it drew me in and I couldn't wait to find out more about each character.
Story told in four pieces from four different perspectives. Starting with Sean who has left his wife to live with the artistic Abigail, in a house where Abigail's college friend Dara lives below. Sean is at a crossroads with his dissertation, and where he is in his life. He gets a contract to co-write a book on euthanasia. At the end of Sean's chapter, there is an incident that the other three chapters help define and explain. Subsequent chapters are told, from various times, by Cameron (Dara's...more
I really liked The House on Fortune Street. It's not necessarily the happiest of stories, but I thought the author did a good job of interweaving the lives of the major characters. There is a constant theme of leaving and/or being left in this book. In the case of Abigail and Dara, they both "lose" their parents (physically and figuratively) although at the time the parents thought they were doing the best thing for their children. Unfortunately, the various forms of abandonment leave Abigail an...more
I had read good things in the LA Times about Livesey's "The House on Fortune Street," but I decided to wait for it to arrive through paperbackswap rather than run out to buy it. For once I made a good decision.
I liked this book. I did not love this book.
I liked Livesy's method of using different narrators to tell the same story with new elements of backstory in each part. I liked the literary allusions, which I think she spelled out more than necessary. It was part of the puzzle and fun of the...more
I liked this book. I did not love this book.
I liked Livesy's method of using different narrators to tell the same story with new elements of backstory in each part. I liked the literary allusions, which I think she spelled out more than necessary. It was part of the puzzle and fun of the...more
I loved this book. Four narratives, four voices, four lives that intersect, all surrounding one pivotal event. (In brief, a 20-something woman, Amanda, lives on the second floor of a house in London and rents out the first floor to her childhood best friend, Dara. Those are the two female voices. The other voices are Amanda's lover Sean, and Dara's father.) Each narrative reveals something entirely new about that character and the others as well.
OK, that structure is not new, but Margot Livesey...more
OK, that structure is not new, but Margot Livesey...more
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Margot Livesey grew up in a boys' private school in the Scottish Highlands where her father taught, and her mother, Eva, was the school nurse. After taking a B.A. in English and philosophy at the University of York in England she spent most of her twenties working in shops and restaurants and learning to write. Her first book, a collection of stories called Learning By Heart, was published by Peng...more
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“so often my own emotions were hidden not only from other people but from myself. or perhaps it was the other way round: i was hiding from them. ”
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3 people liked it
“loves was about the people who loved you”
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2 people liked it
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Sep 01, 2008 03:41pm