Product Description

Charleen, a divorced woman attending her widowed mother's second wedding, makes startling discoveries about other family members attending the reunion and achieves a new understanding of herself and her own life. Reprint.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #917387 in Books
• Published on: 1996-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Charleen Forrest, Judith Gill's sister (see Small Ceremonies, above), is obsessive and hyper-romantic, a poet who no longer writes because "having given away the well of myself, there is nowhere to go"?except inward. Which is why she looks for deeper meaning in nylon slips and train berths. And why, when her lover describes his father's faltering attempt at sex education ("See The Prairie Lovelies?Only Twenty-five Cents"), she imagines his family as imbued with "a sort of decency which surfaces unconsciously." It's also why she pictures her father's massive heart attack as "a tidal wave of pressure, a blind wall?darkness crushing him as he lay sleeping." Today, a doctor would give Charleen Prozac and send her on her not-so-merry way. But in 1977, when Shields wrote her second novel (which, like Small Ceremonies, is making its first U.S. appearance), the more common treatment for such neuroses was to endure. Charleen not only endures but comes out stronger after one especially trying weeklong trip across Canada to attend her mother's wedding when she is confronted with more of her past than she?or the reader?expects. It's the sort of experience that should send her completely over the edge, but Charleen isn't quite as fragile as she seems. In less capable hands she'd be a caricature, her transformation contrived. But Shields makes Charleen and her experiences believable. Even more rewarding, she makes them endearing.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable and very well crafted
Charleen Forrest (nee McNinn) is , in good Carol Shields fashion, mostly an observer in her own life. Still in love with her absent, long divorced ex-husband, she alternates bouts of scathing self criticism with ones of gentle dithering. Three days involving enormous amounts of travel, excitement and revelation somehow leave Charleen with just a minor adjustment in her modus operandi. Readers of Ms. Sheilds "Small Ceremonies" will be interested to find Charleen is sister to that novel's biographer heroine, Judith (who makes an appearance here with her husband, Martin, and children as well). Showing the reader what can and cannot be revealed through words as Charleen concentrates most of her energies on correspondence with a mysterious botanist, and showing as well her curious gift for rendering the intangible into a three dimensional state ("Yes." I agree, forcing my voice into short plumes of enthusiasm, "Really good. So tender.") Carol Shields gives this small book the weight of her full talents

A Shields Hero Takes a Trip & Discovers Life is OK
Carol Shields's second novel, The Box Garden, quickly followed her first, Small Ceremonies, and features some of the same characters. But the books are not mirror images. They are both entertaining, insightful, humanistic--Shields cares deeply about her afflicted characters. Judith Gill, biographer, mother of two and happily married to Martin, narrated Small Ceremonies; younger sister and divorced poet Charlene Forrest tends The Box Garden. It is not surprising that two sisters can see the world so differently, but that Shields can make Judith and Charlene's disparate views of the same characters so authentic. Charlene is the quirkier. Within a few pages, she confesses a lack of courage. She is a published poet, at home with language, if not the world. Charlene is raising a son who is content with what the world and his mother offer. How did this happen, she muses? Charlene travels east from Vancouver to Toronto for her mother's wedding with her boyfriend, Eugene. The trip proves full of challenges and fulfillment, new friends and family reconnected, including Judith's clan. Charlene experiences a series of small epiphanies through these encounters. She allows herself escape from her small garden to a larger world, full of the unknown, but with hints of acceptance of life as it is. Shields's language is as rich as the assembled characters, which inlcude the mother of all negative mothers, defrocked priests and spiritual charlatans. Bring a pen and paper along for the read to jot down Shield's matchless discriptions of everyday life and families for future use.

Early "chick lit"
I enjoyed the book. I think it has a "mature chick lit" theme. I do find the comments in the reviews, about how now Charleen would be given Prozac and sent on her way, both insulting and untrue. It is insulting from the standpoint that most competent doctors do not believe medication treats social issues and existential angst. I find it untrue in that Charleen does not appear depressed or anxious; she seems to be redefining herself after her life has been turned upside down, and it takes going back to where she started to find out how far she has come, and how strong and independent she is now. The twists and turns weren't hard to figure out, but didn't seem forced or contrived. I enjoyed the novel. It isn't ritzy or racy, but a wonderful story of growth and acceptance.