Giving Up On Ordinary
Isla Dewar
Dunne, Apr 2008, $24.95
ISBN: 9780312349615
Divorcee Megs’ life is in a rut as she gets up, gets her three kids up, feeds her three kids, feeds Shameless the dog, goes to work as a cleaning lady, comes home to feed the kids and dog, goes to sleep and starts all over again with the next wake up. Nearing forty, Megs loves her three children, but tells her best friend there must be more to life. She never recovered from her son Thomas’ death in a car accident in which she was late to pick him up at school so he went home alone. Her only enjoyment is singing at the Glass Bucket every Friday night.
Megs’ newest cleaning client is Professor Gilbert “Hundred Miles an Hour” Christie, whose house is a disaster. He owns a vacuum that has never been used as he appreciates style and design over use. He is surprised and attracted to her mockery, a device she uses when a patron humiliates her as a cleaning lady.
Megs works as a waitress at a university function that Gilbert attends. When Gilbert sneezes with a pea in his mouth, he humiliatingly watches the vegetable shoot across the table. Soon after the pea incident, Gilbert drives Meg crazy while she cleans his home with his angst until she yells at him. Later Gilbert watches Meg sing at the Glass Bucket. They start an affair, but she notices him looking at the ghost in all the corners.
The prime character is fully developed so that the audience can understand her frustrations of wanting to give up her ordinary life as a mother and a cleaning lady to regain the dreams of her youth. However, she is too responsible to do that until the affair makes her reconsider that her needs and that of her family do not necessarily mean exclusiveness. Fans of deep character studies will appreciate this strong look at a woman turning forty wondering when did her dreams die.
Harriet Klausner
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