![]() ![]() But it's the novel I'm reviewing here, not the format or Frantzen, and whilst the book has defects, I'm going for 5*s all the same. Certainly it would be better placed as an Afterward in terms of flow. Just one tip: if you're reading the edition with Jonathan Frantzen's introduction in it, leave it until after you've finished - it's full of spoilers and will (to my mind wrongly) lower your expectations of the second half. ![]() The pace is good, the structure tight, the style accessible and I devoured it in a few days. ![]() Yet it's more than a mere work of historic interest with it's portrayal of angst over work/life balance and how much you should subjugate your own personality at work, and its insights into the internal conflicts experienced when returning home post war by the average Jo, it has resonance for today too. It has `flaws': it's dated the world of writing and rewriting speeches seems quaint and remote 50-Powerpoint-years later Betsy's not a particularly rounded character and is unconvincingly forgiving the end is too easy and neat. Anyway, this is the original if you like - written at the time, rather than the retrospectively - and a fascinating insight into the mores and angst of the postwar era. Even the names of the two characters, Tom and Betsy, are spookily like Don and Betty - or maybe not so spookily apparently Mr Draper is reading a copy in one episode of the (5*) TV show. The publishers are missing a marketing trick on this book - it should be reissued subtitled 'the original Mad Men' or some such - the parallels are so marked. ![]()
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