Blurb
A passion for books creates a lasting bond between teenage Patty Jo and David, but small-town prejudice and social differences doom their romance.
After a summer of reading and falling in love, David heads for university, foreign adventure, and a dazzling career; Patty Jo marries slick, over-confident Don Ried.
Yet plans can go horribly wrong. The victim of her violent husband, Patty Jo abandons her home and children to live on the streets of Toronto. David, a high-ranking executive in Paris, is dismayed by the superficiality of corporate success.
Forty years later, Patty Jo and David meet again. Both have defied society; both have fulfilled their dreams. And what if first love was the right one after all, and destiny has the last word?
Excerpt
Then he sees her. Way over there, sitting by the edge of the grit shoreline, chin in one hand, staring out at the lake’s far side. No sign of the louts she usually hangs around with. She’s alone. Will he go talk to her? Dare break into her peace?
Of course he will. He’s a moth drawn to her dazzling light, although he knows there’s a chance of disappointment. He’ll say something; she’ll answer like a townie, in that bold, vulgar way of townie girls. And the fascination will end. It will be over. Goodbye, good riddance to fantasy.
She doesn’t turn at his approach, probably doesn’t hear the crunch of loafers on pebbles. Obviously, she’s off in a dream, a daydream, a memory, some cosmos that doesn’t include David William Preston Buckley Jr. Without thinking, he sits beside her, crosses his legs.
“You like the lake?”
See? It’s that easy. You don’t hesitate, just plop down, say something banal. Then wonder if she’ll jump to her feet, scram.
She turns, and the bruised-looking, insolent eyes meet his. Defiantly. Unfriendly, yes, but with that touch of curiosity that doesn’t quite discourage. Then, looks away again. No words. No way to continue.
So, he’ll stay here. Stare out at the water too. Worse comes to worst, she’ll hiss an insult, townie-style, something like “get lost, chump,” and he’ll keep on sitting, puppy-love fool, bum aching on the sharp cement-drab stones. It will be a humiliation, true, but not a deadly one—a put-you-in-your-place rebuff that you get over soon enough.
Review by Lisabet Sarai
Teen-aged Patty Jo doesn’t just come from the wrong side of the tracks. Her home environment is a living hell. Forced by her abusive family to hand over her salary from the greasy spoon diner where she works after school, as well as to do all the housework in the broken-down shack they all share, she has little time or energy for dreams. Still, there’s some spark in her, a yearning for another kind of life. Books are her escape, a defense against her bleak, painful reality.
Books are the first bond between Patty Jo and her intellectual classmate David. Though they come from different worlds, David is irresistibly drawn to the slender, shy, yet defiant young woman he sees sitting by the lake. Gradually he manages to break down her barriers. Little by little, they build a love that bridges the vast social gap between them. When they are together, everything feels right and anything seems possible.
But teenage passion is as transient as it is intense. Forced by family, expectations and circumstances to part, they go their separate ways. Each one experiences pain, disappointment and loneliness. As they age, however, they make choices that bring them closer to their true selves. And when they finally meet again – forty years after the first flush of their love – they rediscover, against all odds, that same marvelous sense of connection that originally brought them together.
Words for Patty Jo is labeled as women’s fiction, not romance. I understand this decision on the part of the author. For most of the book, the protagonists are living lives apart from one another. Both Patty Jo and David are involved in other relationships. Indeed, Patty Jo is twice married and has children. This doesn’t fit the standard romance template, where the focus remains fixed on the growing bond between the hero and heroine as they struggle against internal or external obstacles.
The time span of the novel also violates romance conventions. Very few romance tales allow their protagonists to grow old.
Still, I found this an extremely romantic book as well as a splendid example of the “second chance” romance trope. The ending provides a deep feeling of satisfaction while remaining realistic and plausible.
Patty Jo is a fascinating and complicated character, in some ways not at all admirable. She’s sneaky and deceptive. She abandons her children, a horrific crime in the view of some people. Using her sexuality as a weapon, she takes advantage of others, especially men. At the same time, the reader can’t help but admire her grit and her determination to survive. You feel that she deserves happiness and despite her less-than-perfect behavior, you want her to achieve it.
David is less fully realized; perhaps one should expect this from "women’s fiction" penned by a female author. Still, his journey offers an illuminating contrast to Patty Jo’s. Affluent, intelligent and well-educated, he gradually discards the trappings of his privileged upbringing and builds a simpler, more authentic life. Unlike Patty Jo, his struggles are mostly internal, not external.
One of the most impressive aspects of this novel, for me, was the shift in the characters’ perspectives as they age. Like me, Jill Arlene Culiner has lived a long time. I think she remembers what it’s like to be a teen as well as how her decisions, wise or not, played out as the decades unrolled. The love between Patty Jo and David has evolved, as they have. It is an old person’s love – but still wondrous.
All in all, I adored this book. Patty Jo is very different from me, but I was pulled into her life and her battles. While I was reading, they felt vividly real. And when she finally reconnects with her long-ago lover, I could only rejoice.
About the Author
Writer, artist, and teller of tall tales, Jill (J.) Arlene Culiner, was born in New York and raised in Toronto. She has crossed much of Europe on foot, has lived on the Great Hungarian Plain, in a Bavarian castle, a Turkish cave dwelling, and a haunted house on the English moors. She now resides in a 400-year-old former inn in a French village where she protects spiders, snakes, and weeds. She delights in hearing any nasty, funny, ridiculous, or romantic story, and when she can’t uncover gossip, she makes it up.
She has won the Tanenbaum Prize in Canadian Jewish History, the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Memoir, was shortlisted for the Foreword Magazine Prize, and twice for the Page Turner Awards.
http://www.j-arleneculiner.com
All Links: https://linktr.ee/j.arleneculiner
Storytelling: https://soundcloud.com/j-arlene-culiner
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jculiner
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7158064.J_Arlene_Culiner
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jarlene.culiner/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JArleneCuliner
Jill Arlene Culiner will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.
