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Title Description
In ALL IS VANITY, Margaret and Letty, childhood friends, reach their mid-thirties and sense that they must change their lives. Margaret, overconfident, quits her job and whips out a literary tour de force. Frustrated and humiliated almost immediately, she turns to Letty, a housewife and mother of four, for support. But as Letty tries to fit into her high-class husband's circle of acquaintances, Margaret sees a plot unfolding that's better than anything she could ever make up. Desperate to finish her novel and against her own judgment, she eggs Letty on to take risks, and then steals her stories for the novel. It is only later that she realizes the magnitude of the betrayal she is committing, and is confronted by its terrible consequences.
"Schwarz is a skillful writer." (Amazon.com)
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Customer Reviews
Have you listened to this audiobook? Please submit your ratings and review it!
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Reviewer: Linda Pescatore (see other books I've reviewed) | January 20, 2003 |
Whew. I listened to this in one sitting. Margaret Snyder leaves her teaching job, desperate to make something of her once-promising life by writing a novel. She only feels like more of a failure because she writes nothing, and begins lying to her husband. Meanwhile her earnest childhood friend Letty gets into ridiculous amounts of debt trying to gain respect in a materialistic culture. Finding her muse in Letty's troubles, Margaret encourages Letty to spiral further down to her doom.
In the Hollywood version, Margaret's novel would save them, providing Margaret validation and Letty money. But this isn't the Hollywood version.
The book can be tedious, inconsistent, and incomplete--but the power of the ideas overcome the flaws. Schwarz captures the feelings of life passing by, of chasing lost potential, and of bitter resentment and jealousy that are all too common, even in close friendships. Did I mention it's funny, too? Highly recommended. |
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Reviewer: Kippy Mayfield (see other books I've reviewed) | December 2, 2002 |
| At first I thought this was going to be one of those stories where the main character (and in my mind the author also)just has to inform the reader how wordly and intelligent they are. (Margaret's description of her early childhood for example. She's way above most children her age.)But after just a little while of listening, I finally caught on to the satire and began to really enjoy the story. As Margaret begins to lead Letty down the road to financial ruin, she actually becomes more human and likable to me. She can't take all the blame as Letty and her husband went so willingly down that road. I ended up really caring about what was going to happen next. I also enjoyed Blair Brown as the reader. |
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