Amy and Isabelle: A novel |  | Author: Elizabeth Strout
Publisher: Vintage
List Price: $15.00
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Seller: dbkbooks
Rating:  179 reviews
Sales Rank: 9094
Media: Paperback
Pages: 303
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0375705198
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780375705199
ASIN: 0375705198
Publication Date: February 1, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
National Bestseller
In her stunning first novel, Amy and Isabelle, Elizabeth Strout evokes a teenager's alienation from her distant mother--and a parent's rage at the discovery of her daughter's sexual secrets. In most ways, Isabelle and Amy are like any mother and her 16-year-old daughter, a fierce mix of love and loathing exchanged in their every glance. And eating, sleeping, and working side by side in the gossip-ridden mill town of Shirley Falls doesn't help matters. But when Amy is discovered behind the steamed-up windows of a car with her math teacher, the vast and icy distance between mother and daughter becomes unbridgeable.
As news of the scandal reaches every ear, it is Isabelle who suffers from the harsh judgment of Shirley Falls, intensifying her shame about her own secret past. And as Amy seeks comfort elsewhere, she discovers the fragility of human happiness through other dramas, from the horror of a missing child to the trials of Fat Bev, the community peacemaker. Witty and often profound, Amy and Isabelle confirms Elizabeth Strout as a powerful new talent.
Amazon.com Review
"It was terribly hot the summer Mr. Robertson left town." For Amy Goodrow and her mother, Isabelle, the heat of that summer is the least of their problems. Other citizens in the New England mill town of Shirley Falls are bothered by the heat and by "other things too: Further up the river crops weren't right--pole beans were small, shriveled on the vine, carrots stopped growing when they were no bigger than the fingers of a child; and two UFOs had apparently been sighted in the north of the state." But Amy and Isabelle have a more private misery: a seemingly unbridgeable chasm has opened between this once-close mother and daughter and nothing will ever be the same again. For Amy has fallen in love with her high-school math teacher, Mr. Robertson, who has gone way beyond the bounds of propriety by encouraging the crush. When Isabelle finds out, she is horrified to realize that her anger at him is dwarfed by her rage at her own daughter for "enjoying the sexual pleasures of a man while she herself had not." Mother-daughter novels can, by virtue of their subject matter, often seem claustrophobic, a little overwrought; Elizabeth Strout masterfully avoids this problem by placing Amy and Isabelle in the larger context of the community they inhabit. Though her main focus is on the Goodrow women, Strout often detours into the lives and thoughts of her many secondary characters: Isabelle's coworkers Dottie Brown and Fat Bev; Amy's best friend, Stacy Burrows; Stacy's ex-boyfriend, Paul Bellows; and women from Isabelle's church such as Peg Dunlap and Barbara Rawley. She also introduces a chilling frisson of menace with the unsolved abduction of a 12-year-old girl and a mysterious obscene phone-caller. Like the best of Alice Hoffman, Amy and Isabelle offers up a moving yet resolutely unsentimental portrait of people coming to terms with their lives, finding unsuspected nobility in themselves and unexpected kindness in others along the way. Elizabeth Strout has written a gem of a novel. --Alix Wilber
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 179
 Exquisite Writing, Compelling Story November 10, 2009
Samantha Hoffman (Chicago, Illinois United States)
Amy and Isabelle is a compelling story of a mother and daughter and the secrets they keep from each other. Elizabeth Strout gets into the hearts and souls of these characters and makes you care about them with all their faults and frailties. It's a story of people who learn to accept who they are, understand how they got that way and how they affect those who love them. Strout's writing is exquisite. Read this book and let me know what you think.
 This was a best seller?? October 26, 2009
Barb P (Columbus, Ohio)
This book wore me out. I kept waiting for it to get somewhere with a plot of substance. I found myself skimming a lot of the text to get through the minutia of unrelated stuff. I got within a couple of chapters of the end, and just threw it aside. I didn't care how it ended because I was just tired of the story.
A tough read, but in the end 4 stars October 17, 2009
Book Maven (Southern USA)
While I found this novel to be a very tough read, I kept with it. There was too much telling and not enough showing. However, I pushed beyond that I found that once I got into the rhythm of this novel, I felt compelled to keep reading.
What I liked about this story was the essence of secrets--those we keep from others and those we try to keep from ourselves. Isabelle infuriated me, and yet I could, at times, feel compassion for her. The same could be said for Amy. The author did a good job at creating the core essence of a small town with all its gossipy tension. And, the sad, extremely awkward scenes between Amy and Isabelle were so real that I could feel them. Though I vacillated between giving this book 3 or 4 stars, I ultimately decided upon four for that one reason.
 Mothers and Daughters? October 1, 2009
Yolanda S. Bean (Chicago, IL)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
There was something missing in this story of a mother and a daughter. Overall, the plot was predictable. There were no startling revelations. And the characters' isolation was so profound that even the reader felt cut off from them. The era was unclear - though described as the early seventies, it felt like it could be any time in a small town. The only true-to-life thing was Isabelle's rich fantasy life. And the background story of the summer of a kidnapping went grossly unresolved. All in all, I was disappointed that the conclusion wasn't stronger and because of that, was disappointed in the novel as a whole.
Very well written, especially for a first novel September 3, 2009
algo41 (cinnaminson, nj United States)
While a very good novel, I did not like this as much as Strout's 2nd novel, "Abide With Me". I think it is more a matter of subject matter than skill. What I found interesting is that at the end there is essentially an epilogue discussing what happens to some of the characters, including Isabelle, but nothing at all about Amy - was her life still too undeveloped, too rich in possibilities?
Strout makes commonplace events, and inner dialogue interesting. She is very cognizant of sky, and light, and trees, but is not especially good in those descriptions. Her psychological metaphors and subtleties, on the other hand, are often brilliant.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 179
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