Product Description

From Anna Quindlen, acclaimed author of Blessings, Black and Blue, and One True Thing, a superb novel about two sisters, the true meaning of success, and the qualities in life that matter most.

It’s an otherwise ordinary Monday when Meghan Fitzmaurice’s perfect life hits a wall. A household name as the host of Rise and Shine, the country’s highest-rated morning talk show, Meghan cuts to a commercial break–but not before she mutters two forbidden words into her open mike.

In an instant, it’s the end of an era, not only for Meghan, who is unaccustomed to dealing with adversity, but also for her younger sister, Bridget, a social worker in the Bronx who has always lived in Meghan’s long shadow. The effect of Meghan’s on-air truth telling reverberates through both their lives, affecting Meghan’s son, husband, friends, and fans, as well as Bridget’s perception of her sister, their complex childhood, and herself. What follows is a story about how, in very different ways, the Fitzmaurice women adapt, survive, and manage to bring the whole teeming world of New York to heel by dint of their smart mouths, quick wits, and the powerful connection between them that even the worst tragedy cannot shatter.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #322078 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-29
• Released on: 2006-08-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 269 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Bridget Fitzmaurice, the narrator of Quindlen's engrossing fifth novel, works for a women's shelter in the Bronx; her older sister, Meghan, cohost of the popular morning show Rise and Shine, is the most famous woman on television. Bridget acts as a second mother to the busy Meghan's college student son, Leo; Meghan barely tolerates Bridget's significant other, a gritty veteran police detective named Irving Lefkowitz. After 9/11 (which happens off-camera) and the subsequent walking out of Meghan's beleaguered husband, Evan, Meghan calls a major politician a "fucking asshole" before her microphone gets turned off for a commercial, and Megan and Bridget's lives change forever. As Bridget struggles to mend familial fences and deal with reconfigurations in their lives wrought by Meghan's single phrase, Quindlen has her lob plenty of pungent observations about both life in class-stratified New York City and about family dynamics. The situation is ripe with comic potential, which Bridget deadpans her way through, and Quindlen goes along with Bridget's cool reserve and judgmentalism. The plot is very imbalanced: a couple of events early, then virtually nothing until a series of major revelations in the last 50 or so pages. The prose is top-notch; readers may be more interested in Quindlen's insights than in the lives of her two main characters. (Aug. 28)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Years as a New York Times op-ed columnist have honed Anna Quindlen's writing style, and critics have nothing but praise for the sharp-eyed narration and eloquent dialogue in this novel, her fifth. Opinions differ, however, on other aspects. Some critics say Meghan's arc in the novel is too dramatic, the contrasts between the gritty Bronx and sparkly Manhattan are overly sharp, and class distinctions are sometimes glossed over. Others, however, find charm in this very modern retelling of the ancient riches-to-rags, humble-sister-saves-the-day story. Even those who struggle with the plot and characterization agree the novel is worth reading simply for the prose.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

From Booklist
Muttering a string of bitter profanities sotto voce at the conclusion of a particularly contentious interview, Meghan Fitzmaurice, the queen of morning television, realizes too late that her microphone is still on. Her on-air gaffe instantly becomes delectable fodder for Manhattan's predatory cocktail-party circuit, which is where her idolatrous younger sister, Bridget, first learns of Meghan's meteoric fall from grace. Normally the epitome of cool aplomb, Meghan can trace her uncharacteristic outburst to her husband's almost simultaneous announcement that he's leaving her after 21 years of marriage. Sequestering herself on a remote island far from the professional deathwatch conducted by the media and paparazzi, Meghan trusts Bridget to pick up the pieces of her abandoned life, including providing emotional and familial stability for her college-age son, Leo. Although such life-altering events constitute the novel's moral touchstones, it is in the minutiae of Meghan's and Bridget's lives that Quindlen poignantly reveals the sisters' individual strengths and faults. Moving from the fetid tenements of the Bronx to the ethereal penthouses of Manhattan, Quindlen pens a lavishly perceptive homage to the city she loves, while her transcendentally agile and empathic observations of the human condition underlie the Fitzmaurice sisters' discovery of the transience of fame and the permanence of family. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Why does Anna Quindlen feel compelled to dumb down?
Three-quarters of the way through this book, I had a flash of insight. Up to that point, I couldn't understand what had happened to the clever, insightful Anna Quindlen we all know and love from the New York Times, Newsweek, "One True Thing," and "Black and Blue." Then something occurred to me. Does the rise of the Oprah book club phenomenon mean that there are simply a lot more stupid people reading contemporary novels? Because I honestly felt that I was being treated like a backwoods idiot throughout this book. Understand, I have never lived in Manhattan and I don't personally know any A-List celebrities -- but nonetheless, I GET THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A BLACK TOWN CAR. For crying out loud, the vice presidents of the midsize technology company where I work use car services -- I don't need three pages of explanation for what they are and the degree of prestige they confer. For that matter, most of what Quindlen offers up as an insider's view of celebrity culture is already familiar to anyone who reads People Magazine.

Throughout the whole book, I felt as though Quindlen felt compelled to explain every detail of New York life to me as if I were a 1940s housewife from rural Nebraska, and that's when the Oprah insight came to me -- perhaps the reading public really has changed so much that the overall sophistication of Quindlen's audience has taken a nosedive. But as a writer myself -- one who will never see the well-deserved earlier successes of Anna Quindlen, whom I really do consider a fantastic essayist -- I felt like asking, "Whatever happened to the rule 'show don't tell'? Remember that one from Creative Writing 101?"

Here's the best example of what I mean, but it's only one of dozens in the novel: simply showing the 18-year-old son of a celebrity address the doorman as "Mr. Sanchez" would have been sufficient; I did not need the half-page explanation of "My nephew is a prince. Doormen and domestic help in New York are always called by their first names, but my nephew finds that direspectful and insists on calling the doorman Mr. Sanchez." (I'm paraphrasing from memory; I don't have the book in front of me.)

My point being: we get it, we get it, we get it. Show don't tell, remember? Have the rich-but-not-spoiled Manhattan teen call the doorman Mr. Sanchez and we would understand EXACTLY what you wanted us to know about the kid. That's right, even us homemakers from northern New England would get it: he's polite and deferential even though he doesn't have to be. He's a great kid. Let us figure that out ourselves.

There's another part where Quindlen gives a rather interesting explanation of how the noises of city life are silenced for the rich and privileged because they live and work in buildings with soundproof glass -- then the narrative cuts soon thereafter to a crowded apartment in a housing project and explains that it's NOISY because poor people DON'T have all that soundproofing glass -- no, they HEAR cars and helicopters and shouting. Again, any creative writing teacher who read this passage would say, "Just show me some of the noises -- a car horn or two, a mother shouting -- and the reader will be REMINDED of your point about rich people's domains being soundproof and will INFER the contrast." And then there's the part where the protagonist glimpses her brother-in-law in a restaurant and says "Any single woman in New York knows how to check out a man's dining companion by using reflections" (again, I'm paraphrasing from memory and not quoting) -- actually, anyone who has ever used a mirror knows how to do that. You don't have to be an habitue of New York's trendiest restaurants to know that you can peek in the mirror over the bar to catch a glimpse of your ex's date.

Did any other readers feel this way?

Misses all the right notes
As a clinical social worker, I loved both Black and Blue and One True Thing and felt that Anna Quindlen was spot on in the emotional understanding of her characters.
As right on as I felt she was in these books, I felt that she missed the mark almost entirely in Rise and Shine.
The book seemed full of generalized superficial stereotypes. The hard scrabble people that Bridget worked with were really true at heart and had genuine insight into people and their motivations.
Most of the rich people depicted were nefarious and disingenuous.
Also, I was left not understanding what point the author was trying to make....was there anyone who showed heroism and the street smart intelligence that real people would have in these roles?
Here are some of the things that I questioned:
What real experienced social worker would simply be delighted to find that her young, naive nephew had a license, so he should immediately be employed driving into the dangerous areas of New York?
And, if she was that non-thinking, what experienced policeman boyfriend would not question and put a stop to this?
Where is the emotional rending, introspection and questioning of each other, the parents, aunt, and policeman boyfriend, when the not unexpected tragedy occurs?
Where is the intensive police investigation following the tragedy?
What real police department would allow a civilian to enter a building to bring out a perpetrator and just go along for the ride?
But, perhaps the line in the book that rang the most hollow to me was (spoiler alert) when Bridget, not knowing what her sister is about, just happens to turn on the t.v. to watch her sister enter the building of the perpetrator, and as emotionally charged as such a moment would be, the thought actually crosses her mind that the reporter is versed enough to know that because she is famous, Meghan's name alone is all the identification the public needs.
What real person of any substance would have such a thought in such a moment?
What was the point that the author was trying to make?
That was the question I was left with at the end of the book.

Rise and Shine to be let down with dullness
This is a story of two sisters living in Manhattan. One, the biggest celebrity in the nation, a host of a morning television show called "Rise and Shine," and her sister, a social worker. The story bores you until the talk show host, Meghan, has what's referred to by one character as "a meltdown" and the entire nation is just SHOCKED by her action one morning. What did she do, did she beat the pope with a hammer on air, attempt to kill the president with a plastic fork and knife or admit to her killing over 200 men, women, and children for sport over the past two months? The answer: none of the above. Before a commercial break, under her breath she calls a much loathed guest on her show an f-ing a-hole. In this day and age, it doesn't warrant the reaction it receives from everyone. I couldn't get into the rest of the story because of the absurdity of the s-storm brought down on Meghan.

Another aspect I tired of quickly was the non-stop witty banter between Meghan and her sister, Bridgette. Instead of the Fitzmaurice sisters they are more like the Smothers brothers. It doesn't matter if they're eating breakfast, at a dinner party or jogging, they are always "on." I'm not saying I dislike witty conversation; I'm saying I dislike it when it's contrived and not believable dialogue. I can see a sharp ultra-famous talk show host being that witty but her social worker sister matching her blow for blow? Why aren't they both on television too?

Last but not least, the language is simple. There is no doubt this book was written by a "newspaper person." If you're looking for wonderful sentences constructed to wow you as much as the sisters' dialogue is supposed to you're not going to find them here. This is not literature folks. This is written on a grade level that does not exceed the 8th.

I don't believe in the story, the characters or the simplicity of the text. I know what you're thinking; I'm probably just some f-ing a-hole who despises chick-flick-lit. I'm not. If a story adds up and is well written, I'll enjoy it. I didn't enjoy this. Rise and shine bright and early tomorrow and buy "Catcher in the Rye."