Anybody Any Minute
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Ellen Kenny has a big mouth and a penchant for telling the truth, which is why she's just been fired from yet another high-profile NYC job. Determined to make the most of this unexpected free time, she heads to Montreal to visit her sister. On the way, she spots a tumbledown upstate farmhouse---one she's seen in her dreams for years---and impulsively buys it on a hefty credit card advance. Over her husband's protests, Ellen decides to drop out of the rat race and spend the summer living out her woman-who-runs-with-the wolves fantasy, communing with nature---her own included---in an effort to confront middle age and figure out how on earth she got there. Rather than peacefully tend her garden and puzzle things out, however, Ellen soon becomes embroiled in the exceedingly unique problems of two redneck, social misfit neighbors---an ex-biker and an aging chainsaw sculptor---while taking care of a narcoleptic dog and a child who doesn't speak English.
With Ellen's quest for meaning and her concern for the welfare of others driving the plot, Anybody Any Minute is deeply layered, heartbreaking . . . and hilarious.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mars follows her memoir (A Month of Sundays) with a midlife crisis bildungsroman that is largely unexceptional, though not without charm. New Yorker Ellen Kenny, a 46-year-old ex-hippie, takes a side trip on the way to Montreal to visit her sister and impulsively buys a decrepit house with her credit card. This startles her husband, Tommy, and the effect that Ellen's sudden purchase has on their marriage encompasses the most interesting and touching parts of this novel. Less successful are Ellen's entanglements in her new small hometown: her friendships with two feuding local rednecks, Rayfield and Rodney; her temporary guardianship of her sister's son; and her strange dreams that inspired the house purchase and swirl with the secrets of everyone she knows. The narrative often resorts to silliness, camp (Rayfield nicknamed his obese ex-wife "Doublewide") and mood-spoiling stereotypes (Ellen's Peruvian brother-in-law, for instance, plays the pan flute on street corners). The clumsiness, however, does not entirely overwhelm the moments of sweetness and light humor, and though there's nothing that really sings, it's a passable story of self-discovery and self-improvement.
