The Waiting Room, A Novel by Mary Morris

by Mary Morris

Mary Morris, the acclaimed author of "Nothing to Declare", the remarkable journal of a woman traveling alone, now brings us an absorbing and evocative novel of healing and forgiveness, love and war. THE WAITING ROOM is the intricate tale of three generations of women whose lives have been shaped by the essential experience of all women, that of waiting—for love to grow stronger, for wars to end, for life to move ahead. In its richly woven texture, its movements through time and space, the novel introduces us to the unforgettable members of the Coleman Zoe, who returns home after years away to confront her brother Badger’s break with reality—the result of taking too many drugs in Canada, where he fled to avoid the Vietnam War; June, Zoe’s mother, who first suffered a deep estrangement from her husband when he returned from World War II; and Naomi, the grandmother, who fled the pogroms of Russia.From the Home on the Road Motel to Badger’s residence at the austere Heartland Clinic, from the plains of the Midwest to the swamps of Florida, three women confront men, madness, dreams, and ultimately one another.Filled with humor and the wisdom of generations, THE WAITING ROOM is a novel of hope in the face of loss, of war and its casualties. It is also about freeing oneself from the dark side of waiting, and escaping into the light of love. Written in a magical, almost fablelike manner, and with the inimitable humor that informs the fiction of Mary Morris, THE WAITING ROOM fulfills the promise of Morris’ earlier work, which, from the start, has distinguished the author as a unique American voice.

Genres: Fiction

Unknown Binding

First published February 21, 1989

About the author

I was born in Chicago and, though I have lived in New York for many years, my roots are still in the Midwest and many of my stories are set there. As a writer my closest influences are Willa Cather and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I travel as much as I can and travel fuels everything I do. When I travel, I keep extensive journals which are handwritten and include watercolors, collage as well as text. All my writing begins in these journals. I tend to move between fiction and nonfiction. I spent seventeen years working on my last novel, The Jazz Palace. I think I learned a lot writing that book because the next one only took three years., Gateway to the Moon. Gateway which will be out in March 2018 is historical fiction about the secret Jews of New Mexico. I am also working on my fifth travel memoir about my travels alone. This one is about looking for tigers.

Reviews

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning, eminently readable, superior fiction!! I will continue to read every Mary Morris book I can get my hands on.

[Deidre · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know, I wanted to give this book four stars, but it wasn't QUITE there. If I had to really be more accurate, I'd give it three and a half.

Which is actually somewhat disappointing to me, since I wanted to like the book. Really, I liked the author's style; she has a lyrical, poetic way of writing, and every word and sentence is carefully crafted and chosen. She has a complex storyline, with very sharp characters, and I found myself intrigued and appreciating the depth hidden within the characters.

However, I never could seem to get a full picture of the storyline, the characters, and the underlying messages. The women and their characters were drawn well, but they were almost separate entities from the world around them; in it, but not a part of it. Perhaps that was the author's point, but I couldn't entirely get a sense of the characters within the setting, and it felt a bit disorienting.

In many ways, I feel like the author had some great concepts, like the characters, the settings, and the storylines, but couldn't get them to entirely mesh, so they stood alone, rather than being a part of one another to illustrate a larger idea.

Still, I like the author, and I appreciate her style.

[Cody VC · Rating 3 out of 5]

being generous and rounding up - more like a 2.5. it's an interesting story with some great ideas and imagery - accomplished woman estranged from her midwestern family returns when her younger brother becomes permanently stuck in a drug flashback, and the multigenerational family tragedies of various dimensions are slowly revealed - but it definitely comes too close to being twee in places, and the one aspect that really needs good prose in order to not be a cliche, well. the prose itself is full of cliches; it's not terrible, just (for the most part) firmly mediocre. this could have benefited from a stricter editorial process.

[Jonna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful tale of three strong women and how their lives are interconnected.

[Ginger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book in error. I love the author Mary McGarry Morris and purchased this one from Amazon.com thinking it was one that I hadn't read by Ms. Morris. When the book arrived I realized it was authored by Mary Morris, not Mary McGarry Morris!! However I was not disappointed! This is a very good book. Three generations of women, Grandmother who emigrated from Russia and married a man she never loved, Mother who's husband went to WWII and came back a very different person, and Daughter who is now a doctor trying to save her brother who went to Canada to avoid Vietnam and destroyed his mind with drugs. Very well written. I will read more by this author.

[Tim Bull · Rating 5 out of 5]

In that all reviews are subjective, this is one of the best of the many, many 'contemporary fiction about life' genre books I enjoy most. Mary paints such an evocative picture of her hometown in Wisconsin that I want to visit it and weaves together a fascinating plot from diverse characters. It contains so many paragraphs/statements about getting through life's vicissitudes that I absolutely identify and agree with. Like her, it is inevitable that in the autumn of my life i often think about the town and people where I grew up but I too shy away from visiting it. Is this a normal symptom of ageing and knowing one can't go back and change things? Probably.

[Margo Anos Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been sitting on my bookshelf for years. I always loved looking at the picture on the jacket and just assumed I had read it long ago. Seems that I never did, as the words and story were completely new to me.
Interesting tale of a family. The focus was on the three generations of women, their past and current loves and the influence of their families on how they lived their lives.

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hours of reading painfully detailed descriptions of people struggling through life with no big reveal, no dark secret. What a disappointment! To me this was just a rambling, confusing narrative of some not very interesting lives!?!

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually reread 2020, still very good, but confusing in many parts.

[maddie · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many sentences starting with But that didn't need to start with But. Uneasy

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Morris's early book Nothing to Declare is an all-time favorite of mine.

This novel is OK; well-written, of course. But kind of a downer overall; and the MidWest is not my favorite locale to read about.

[Sonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is about a woman in her early 30's, Zoe, coming back to her hometown in WI to see her brother, who is in the psychiatric ward after a drug overdose. She had driven him to the border of Canada during the Vietnam draft and he scorched his brain on drugs there. The novel also tells the stories of Zoe's mother and grandmother - the captivating, tragic and bizarre stories about the men they had loved.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this story a lot, but the book wasn't that well-written. At all. I wish I could edit it. But it was still a great book! and the story was great. It was one of those intergenerational stories, which I love.

[Vivienne Strauss · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book the year it was published and loved it. I had forgotten the title and author over the years but remembered the cover so I was thrilled to run across it again last year and enjoyed reading it the second time just as much as the first.

[Tobreth Hansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

kind of a waste of my time

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I wasn't sure I would like this book because the beginning seemed a bit disjointed. After the first couple of chapters, I was hooked by the story and the author's beautiful language.

[jess✰ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Joann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book!