Year of the Ginko

by Sharon Dilworth

Back-in-print, a novel about a woman who has difficulty facing up to reality.

How well do you know your neighbors? How well do you know yourself? Caroline, thrown back on her own resources when she loses her job, focuses her attention on the street where she lives and becomes involved in the goings-on of the neighborhood. Before long she falls in love with her neighbor’s husband and builds a fantasy life around him, believing her feelings are returned. It takes the threatened safety of a child to make Caroline see her life as it really is and to realize that she is not the only one on the street who has difficulty facing up to reality.
 

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Stacy culler]

“(The females are) mixed up souls of enormous desperation desperately searching for something outside their capabilities to define them.”

Caroline is clearly depressed and desperate. She is unsettled from losing her job. She is not sure how to parent kids who aren’t babies anymore: they are independent teens who don’t need her. Her loving husband, Joe, is busy with his career and is writing a book.

After a brief flirtation at a neighborhood party, Caroline becomes fixated on Allen, who is married to Caroline’s friend, Maggie. But her obsession with Maggie’s husband seems weird and oddly childish/immature. There doesn’t seem to be any reciprocity of feelings from Allan, she doesn’t seem to notice that he appears to be an alcoholic. She also weirdly wants to confide her feelings to her own husband, Joe. Meanwhile, Joe seems like a great, supportive husband, supporting Caroline as she struggles with her job loss, checking in on her feelings and trying to help her navigate them.

Similarly, Caroline she puts a huge weight on her neighborhood friendships, which are not that deep, and feels disproportionately rejected when there is a rift between herself and the neighbors.

She grows quickly attached to Barbara’s newly adopted daughter, Lilly, only to have her access to the child stopped when she offends Barbara by telling her that she doesn’t particularly like her.

It takes me awhile to realize that Caroline doesn’t really want to have an affair with Allan. She is just bored and idle and looking for a way to occupy her mind, so she fills it with Allan fantasies.

Barbara is weird, which is the point. But she is so annoying that she borders on unbelievable as a character. Why does everyone (Caroline, Maggie, Julie) just do whatever she demands? As Barbara’s weirdness grows, the plot thickens.

The Pittsburgh setting is interesting to me, and the author captures the essence of many familiar places very well…Wholeys fish market, the Fort Pitt Tunnels/bridge, Shadyside, etc. (A hilarious and not very flattering description of Cranberry, also.) She also captures the spirit: the Yinzers, the ubiquitous presence of hospitals and the university, the longing to be other places in the world but we stay because this is home. The neighborhood is the definition of “nebby,” although the term is never used.

The first 1/2 of the book was slow and boring and a little annoying but it grew on me. It might have been only 3.5 stars, but I will give it it s bump up, because of the ‘ Burgh thing.

I kinda wanted to know what Barbara’s actual problem was.

[Carolyn Menke]

Year of the Ginkgo is Caroline's story, a 40-something mother who finds herself out of a job and desperately in love with her next door neighbor, Allan, who happens to be married to Caroline's friend, Maggie. It's a contemporary tale of the relationships between neighbors, the secrets they keep, and the lengths to which they go to protect them. I became fond of Caroline's voice from the start, and enjoyed the evolution of her character - in particular, the way she navigates her relationships with Maggie, Barbara, and her own family. It's authentic. It's fresh. I loved all of the Pittsburgh references, and could easily imagine myself walking my dog up Howe Street, past the empty lot where Caroline's boys played, Barbara's car parked on the curb, and maybe eavesdropping on a rendezvous under the street light. The use of a ginkgo tree and Caroline's obsession with it was clever. I look forward to reading more by this author.