Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Group, 2001
Pages: 274
Rating: Recommend
This is my favorite Stephanie Gertler novel.
Synopsis (from the book jacket): Do you ever think back on your first love? This acclaimed debut novel explores the "what if" questions that live in every woman's heart. Emily Hudson should be happy. She has achieved modest success as a painter and lives a good suburban life with her husband and four children. But one day, somewhere between the train schedule, orthodontist appointments, and bake sales, Emily stopped and remembered who she was when she found love with James Moran - the young man she kissed beneath her parents' Ping Pong table - the boy who made her Jimmy's Girl.
It's been thirty years since they went their separate ways. But Emily cannot stop herself from thinking about Jimmy nor can she resist using the Internet to find his address and telephone number and placing the phone call that will change both their lives forever.
When Emily and Jimmy decide to meet again, they risk the lives they've made for themselves and the happiness of their respective families. In one unforgettable weekend, the will learn what went wrong between them and find out together if it deserves a second chance.
Told from the perspective of both Jimmy and Emily, each in turn revealing their lies and their truths, this remarkable novel shows with tenderness and heart-rending accuracy the differences between what men and women say and what men and women hear. The debut of a writer of extraordinary talent, Jimmy's Girl is a novel for anoyone who ever left love behind and dared to wonder "what if?"
Review: This is a difficult review to write because it hits close to home, very close to home actually. I loved this novel and almost feel as though Gertler should have stopped writing once this debuted. It would be impossible to top with another novel. She came close with Drifting, but clearly this is the masterpiece of her career.
This novel didn't end the way that I wanted, but few ever do. It ended in the way that I dreaded it would which didn't make for a bad or even disappointing ending, but rather a difficult ending. On an emotional level. It ends the way it "should" though. Gertler does a good job of ensuring her characters stay true to themselves.
While I loved this book, the majority of those who gave their opinions on the tiny slip of paper attached to the last page of the novel for that very purpose, found it "too drawn out", "boring", and thought it "strayed from the plot". I wholeheartedly disagree with each of those opinions and of course have no idea who wrote them or their individual situations, but I find it hard to believe that anyone who ever wondered about a lost love or "what might have been" would find this drawn out or boring. I couldn't put it down.
And that is why I have a hard time rating this one. I loved it and would have "highly recommended" it had I not read the opinions in the back. When four of six reviewers didn't care for it, I hesitate to give it a "highly recommend" rating. Perhaps a reader has to experience a lost love situation such as this to fully appreciate all this novel has to offer. I would love for anyone reading this to weigh in with your own opinion.
Read reviews of other Stephanie Gertler novels:
Drifting
A Puzzle Barktree
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