Lillian on Life
Written by Alison Jean Lester
Narrated by Kathe Mazur
3.5/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
Smart, poignant, funny, and totally original, Lillian on Life is as fresh and surprising as fiction gets.
This is the story of Lillian, a single woman reflecting on her choices and imagining her future. Born in the Midwest in the 1930s; Lillian lives, loves, and works in Europe in the fifties and early sixties; she settles in New York and pursues the great love of her life in the sixties and seventies. Now it's the early nineties, and she's taking stock. Throughout her life, walking the unpaved road between traditional and modern choices for women, Lillian grapples with parental disappointment and societal expectations, wins and loses in love, and develops her own brand of wisdom. Lillian on Life lifts the skin off the beautiful, stylish product of an era to reveal the confused, hot-blooded woman underneath.
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Reviews for Lillian on Life
22 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lillian is born in Missouri in 1933, and lives a life that takes her to Europe, the growing sexual freedom of the post-World War II years, the loss of the love of her life, the loss of her parents. Some of that may sound a bit grim, but Lillian chooses to enjoy life. The "now" of the book is the early 1990s, as Lillian in her sixties reflects on her life.
She tells her story in her own voice, and in an episodic, nonlinear way. Each chapter reflects on one period of her life, one life lesson or formative experience. First boyfriend, first sexual experience, first time living with a man. Attending Vassar, and discovering through her education major assistant teaching stints that she loves caring for toddlers--but not necessarily even slightly older children. The tensions between her and her mother, and the closer connection to her father.
There are some oddities in what's included and what isn't. World War II seems to have made almost no impression on her at all. Early on, we get an account of her fussy, smell-extinguishing house-keeping--which is an early revelation of her personal fastidiousness throughout her life. The tone of the whole book is casual, conversational, reflective, and it's a relatively quick, relaxing read.
Clear warning: There is no plot. That's not a problem with the book; it's the kind of book it is. But if you like a good, tight plot, this is not your next favorite book.
In the end, I couldn't quite warm to Lillian as much as I would have wished, but I think many other readers will. There's a lot to like, and Lester's writing style is engaging.
Recommended with some reservations.
I received a free electronic galley of this book from Penguin via their First to Read program. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If there is one word to describe this book it is fresh. The novel is about the adventures and misadventures of a middle aged woman with men as she looks back over the course of her life. Her insights and observations are refreshing and candid. The protagonist is capable and competent (not a victim) and the nice thing about the book from a man's point of view (I am a man.) is that she seems to actually like men and enjoy their company. When I read a book I write things that I find interesting in the text and I wrote down a whole lot from this book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a very good debut novel. Written in short story type chapters, Lillian takes you through her life as an unmarried woman in a time when it was unconventional to have a full life without being married. I'm still not sure if I like Lillian but I did enjoy the book.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Often, when I read a novel that is constructed as individual, standalone chapters that read as short stories, I end up feeling the writer was afraid of the extended toil of writing a novel, and come away disappointed. So it was deeply gratifying to read Lillian on Life, by Alison Jean Lester, and discover an author who not only knows how to do this kind of novel justice, making it all hang together as a novel, but also knows how to write like a boss.With pointed observations, and dry, often self-depreciating wit, Lester’s lusty heroine, Missouri-born Lillian, Vassar dropout, who “dated men from Yale” leads us deep into her life in the mid-twentieth century, a time when women were just beginning to rediscover the government of their own sexuality and lives.Clocking in at a spare 218 pages, Lillian’s journey takes readers from the teen-aged kitchen of her parents, where she enjoyed an after-school coke with the family maid, Mary, to the final premenopausal chapters where she loses Ted, the love of her life. In between we are treated to an abundance of sex and hilarity, as she searches for satisfaction and happiness in Germany, Paris, London and New York.In Germany she meets her first scoundrel, the Hungarian Laszlo, who haunts her, in a stalkerish way, until she finally rids herself of him in a dramatic scene later in the novel.“His heavy hair hung in shining waves, and his eyelashes sprang away from his blue eyes as if the color surprised them.”And:“Such things were not called rape back then. (Paragraph) I ate the bread and cheese in my room the next day and mended the blue dress.”Lester’s first-person prose manages the feat of being at once stark and tight, and also rich and vibrant. Reading Lillian on Life gives the feeling of substance being delivered under pressure through a tightly focused aperture.“They thought of themselves as realists, but they were merely brutal.”“Alec was very tall, and broad, and had been bred to pass judgment.”“In the restaurant he ordered for both of us, which was irritating, but if I’ve learned anything with other men, it is to keep my distance from male pride. It’s an electric fence.”“Going home that evening, I wondered if I would look for a platonic escort of my age if I were in Pyam’s position. I decided not. I’ll always want someone whose fingers are strong enough to pull my hair. Always.”Lillian on Life is a grownup novel, written by a writer at the peak of her powers. It certainly deserves to garner interest and win awards. I highly recommend it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was an interesting look at an unconventional woman – one who made choices that were not the standard in her time. And although Lillian claimed she always wanted marriage and children, her choices in men and career caused her to remain single. But Lillian still lived her life to the fullest.It was written in the style of a memoir using a series of short chapters with titles that sound like an instruction manual on the life Lillian is reflecting back upon; such as: “On the Dual Purpose of Things”, “On One-Night Stands”, “On Us”, “On Looking the Part”, “On the End”.Witty and full of life, Lillian’s story will entertain women of all ages… and might enlighten a few men too!Audio production:At only a little over four hours, I listened to this in one afternoon. It was pleasantly narrated by Kathe Mazur; an easy, entertaining listen.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5“Lillian On Life,” by Alison Jean Lester, is a lovely, wise, and powerful character study that reads like a memoir of (mostly) stand-alone linked stories. It starts out with the main character, Lillian, a woman in her late fifties or early sixties who has never married. She’s lying in bed with her married lover who is still asleep. As she lies next to him, wide-awake, she reminisces about why her life--especially her love life--has not turned out like she’d planned. The story is told in rough chronological order from Lillian’s teens forward, eventually returning--as of course it had to--full circle back to the beginning. It’s a novel that focuses on Lillian’s relationships--with her mother, her father, her black Southern nanny, her sister-in-law, her best girlfriend, and all her major and minor lovers (many married men) along the way to the present day. What we learn is who Lillian was, how she navigated the important relationships in her life, and how she developed into the woman she has become. Throughout the book, the questions for me were always: what does it take to become a woman who is content to be the lover of a married man; and what does it take to become the type of woman who can build her happiness on someone else’s pain and loss? Unfortunately, my goal in reading the novel didn’t turn out to be the author’s goal in writing it. The author was content to just let the character reveal herself and not to force her to delve too deeply into her psychological or moral underpinnings. As it turns out, Lillian is apparently not the type of character who ever delves too deeply into what makes her act the way she does. She just lives her life as she want to live it…perhaps as she must live it. I was fascinated in the character, beguiled by her story, and shocked by her seeming lack of a moral compass. Lillian just was Lillian. And aren’t we all just who we are? Her life took a random course--as most of our lives end up doing--and she arrives in the present a bit confused as to how she got there. The book was well-written, meditative, starkly honest, and aimed at a literary audience. At times it was humorous, at other times quite sad, and often filled with the scenes of sweet remembered passion. I liked it quiet a lot, but I did not love it. As we grow older, we all learn that we should try to not be judgmental about other human beings. We should just accept them as they are…that there is much about life that makes it biologically impossible for many humans to change their behavior in any significant way. Julia Glass, one of my favorite authors; she specializes in writing profoundly moving character studies. She said of this book that it was “a remarkably mature first novel,” and I wholly agree with her. Lester’s philosophy about people like Lillian is ultimately exceptionally mature. It is the type of “wisdom” we hope we all achieve as we age and mellow in understanding for our fellow travelers through life…to just accept them faults and all, as they are, without judgment. If what I’ve said about this book interests you, I sincerely recommend that you read Lillian’s story and see if you can accept her and her life without judgment. Whether you can or cannot, I’m confident you’ll find the journey artistic and worthwhile.