Great book, love this author and how they can keep my attention to the end! The plot is well developed, characters are believable and they obviously paid attention to detail to make the story worth your time to read.

This book has been on my NG queue for a long time, and I apologize for the tardiness of my response. I no longer have access to this file due to a Kindle crash, but I think you for the opportunity to review.

This book was so so slow. I kept trying to figure out the point of the story, and there just didn't seem to be a good one.

I'm always looking for a new book that's slightly outside my comfort zone of fast-paced, adventurous reads. Sadly, Straying did not fit the bill. It was just a little too slow for me, with a little too much of nothing happening. I've seen a few reviews call it introspective and I think that is the perfect description for this book. Although I could not finish it, if slow, reflective books are your thing, then I would recommend this.

After I finished Molly McCloskey’s eloquent, thought-provoking novel Straying, I thought about the title. What is the definition of ‘straying?’ The word evokes the idea that someone … or some thing … wanders off the path. Not intentionally. No never intentionally–but an aimless, purposeless wandering off. And that brings me to the book’s plot: Straying is the story of a young American ex-pat who travels to Ireland, gets a job, and marries. Alice, a journalist in a stalled career, has no particular plans when she arrives in Ireland “at the tail end of the 80s.” She makes connections and drifts into a job in Sligo as a barmaid. Here she meets Eddie, a quiet, older man, who imports furniture. While Eddie seems perfect husband material, Alice feels a tug of resistance.

And then, one night, I had what felt like a conversion experience. I allowed myself to accept, with what seemed my whole heart, a future with Eddie. It wasn’t a decision (even allowed isn’t the right word), and that was why it felt like something I could trust.

All the right boxes are checked, and so they marry. Eddie buys them a lovely home, and is kind and thoughtful to his younger wife. Why then does the marriage go wrong?

Straying

In the novel, Alice is now a middle-aged woman who’s spent nomadic years working for non profits abroad. She returns to Ireland after wandering the world being exposed to some of the planet’s greatest miseries, and she finds herself alone with the memories of her brief marriage and an affair. Alice reminisces about Eddie and their marriage, still trying to unravel the motives for her actions decades later, yet even deeper than these troubling memories which are entwined with thoughts about her decisions, Alice deeply mourns her mother. By far the strongest connection in the book exists between Alice and her mother–even in death.

Now that Alice’s life is far removed from the notion of home and children, she finds herself thinking more about her mother and some of the conversations they had, especially those that took place towards the end of her mother’s life when “she often sounded distracted, as though she had caught sight of something approaching in the distance, something she couldn’t quite make out.” People who reach middle age (or late middle age) are fortunate indeed if their parents are still alive, for it’s only with age that we can possibly begin to understand our parents.

Straying is essentially the story of an affair, yet it’s also a story of loss,

Beyond the end of the lawn, the upper half of the Protestant church, which dominates the Crescent, looms like a giant risen from slumber, and when the night is cold and wet and moonlight falls on the yew tree and its needles glint like tinsel, the spectacle of it all is more than satisfying–for though I lament that narrowing of world that comes with age, I know that, like all children, I overlooked much and took everything for granted, and that even into the early years of adulthood, when I thought about the world at all in that way, I mistakenly assumed that all of its good, beautiful things would come around again, and then again, and again, until the time was right for me to pluck them. Now I am old enough to know that there are people I would like to see again whom I have already seen for the last time, there are places I dream of returning to that I will never revisit, and that though a few things do come around again and offer themselves, many more do not.

After finishing this wonderful book, I found myself puzzling over Alice’s behaviour. How did she drift into marriage? How did she drift into this affair? She certainly never intended to hurt anyone, yet that was the ultimate result.

The title has a double meaning: Alice’s affair but also the aimlessness of her early life and marriage. Yet was she really aimless? Bad things happen in life. Take disease for example. We don’t choose disease, but sometimes it happens anyway, in spite of our plans or our tactics of avoidance. But can we say the same thing about marriage and/or infidelity? Do they just happen or are they murky attempts to establish or demolish something we don’t even recognize that we are seeking?

I’m a big believer in the idea that most of the time, people have a way of getting what they want. I’m not talking about money or health; I’m talking about the subtle manipulation of circumstance: I didn’t mean to let the dog off leash; I didn’t mean to have an affair.

If you like books that delve into the murky waters of motivation, then you should enjoy Straying. While Alice chews over the choices she made, because yes they were choices even though she didn’t see things that way, this leaves room for the reader to speculate about the deep motivations for the decisions she made. Alice is a sensitive, thoughtful narrator who is still chewing over her actions decades later, and perhaps because she doesn’t make excuses, I liked her even more.

I’ll be reading this author again. This is a wonderful, wonderful book.

I recall a single midnight downpour, parked in Eddie’s car above the beach at Rosses Point, the world through the windscreen a rich black smear, as though painted in oils.

(Alternate title: When Light is Like Water)

review copy

Uneventful, slow, pointless story. No twists and turns, no excitement and no real emotions needed for this read. The one high point was very bland.

A well-written novel about a woman looking back on her past: what influenced her to stray from her marriage, its impact on herself and others, and its consequences.

I have loved many books that portray unlikeable protagonists, but I just couldn’t get past my feelings towards Alice in Straying. Alice is American and moves to Ireland in her early 20s. She marries Eddie. And then for no particular reason, she starts an affair with Cauley. Later in life, she returns to Ireland and reflects on what happened with Eddie and Cauley. My aversion to Alice is not motivated by a sense of offense at the fact she had an affair — I’m perfectly happy to read good fiction about pretty much anything. But there’s a coldness and a flatness to Alice that didn’t really ring right and that left me feeling indifferent. The story is written from the first person, and yet Alice describes her own actions as though she is an outside observer. It’s very distancing and ultimately not engaging. Why even three stars? McCloskey really knows how to use language, and there’s no question this is well written. I just wish I had enjoyed the characters and story more.

This was a monthly read with my reading buddies Angela and Diane, which as always made this a better experience despite my frustration with the book. And thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

This title is the first fictional work McCloskey has published in the US, but surely it cannot be the last. This addictive novel came to me free and early, courtesy of Scribner and Net Galley in exchange for this honest review. It becomes available to the public February 20, 2018.

Alice has returned to Ireland. As a young woman of 24, she had gone there intending to visit, gain some perspective about what to do with her life, and then return to Portland, Oregon, but instead she met Eddie and married. “I was not sure how grown-up love was supposed to feel.” Now she is more mature and single again; she returns to Ireland and in a deeply intimate, gently philosophical narrative, tells us about what happened, and about the affair with Cauley that was instrumental in ending her marriage.

Here I must confess that I have old-fashioned ideas about cheating on a spouse. If your marriage is solid, you should respect it and be faithful. If your marriage is dying, get out before you start something new; don’t sneak around and tell lies. If your marriage is troubled and you aren’t sure what you want, address that first, but don’t poison the well with a fling. It’s unethical and unfair. Have some integrity, for goodness sake.

And so, why am I reading this novel, and more to the point, why am I loving it? It goes to show that a strong writer can make me want to read almost anything, whereas an indifferent one may start with a promising scenario that fizzles. McCloskey pulls me in and doesn’t let me go.

The cover art tells the reader right away that despite the title, this is not erotica. Those looking for a novel that will make them breathe hard will have to find something else. Straying gives us something far better, in my view. I feel as if Alice is my dear friend. I usually read several titles at once, drifting from one to another over the course of a day or evening. But Alice interrupts my literary smorgasbord because in a way, I feel disloyal for reading anything else. The narrative here, told in the first person, is so deeply personal that it’s as if she is sitting across from me at a coffee shop (or since we’re in Ireland, in a pub perhaps), and she’s spilling the beans, confessing everything that she did, and the consequences that followed. She isn’t beating herself up Anna Karenina-style, nor is she proud of her mistakes; rather, she is explaining what happened, what she’s learned from it, and what she still wonders about. It's not prose you can walk away from until it’s over.

Those that love excellent fiction should buy this book and read it. If you can get it cheap, do that; if you have to pay full jacket price, do it anyway. You don’t want to miss this one.

There will be times when you will want to tell Alice to grow up. This slender novel is a woman's reflection, prompted by the death of her mother, on what are basically bad choices. Alice moved to Ireland as a young woman, married Eddie, and then had an affair and left him to roam the world. It's nicely written but how much you like this will depend on how open you are to sympathizing with someone who has had little regard for others but is struggling for redemption. This could have been set anywhere bur McCloskey wisely chose Ireland, a setting she uses to great advantage. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

This book was very slow and often depressing to me so it was hard for me to keep reading. Having said that I did like it a little bit more as I got into it further but still had a hard time with it. I hate giving less than 3 star reviews but I really just didn't like this one very much.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I really liked this book. I enjoyed the characters. I thought they were well rounded. I liked the settings. I could really feel like I knew where they all were.

I would recommend this book.

Reflecting back on your life doesn't need to wait until you are old and gray and all of the exciting bits of life are behind you. In this novel, a woman in her late thirties thinks about her life, her loves and the work she chose to pursue. Alice is from Oregon and decides, post-college, to move to Ireland as a kind of adventure. She was not running away from anything but rather to a new experience, a different culture with different people. Alice's closest attachment is her mother who raised her on her own. Alice remains close to her mother, and they exchange letters and phone calls frequently. Alice settles into life in Ireland and marries a solid guy called Eddie.

In this self-reflective narrative, Alice describes how one unusually hot summer she drifted into a love affair, and we experience the inner conflict Alice experiences. Her life seems very passive, and yet it is hard to explain away having an extramarital affair as passive behavior. The question seems to be whether she ever truly loved her husband or wanted that short love affair.

After years of working for NGO's in war-torn regions of Africa and eastern Europe, Alice chooses to go back to Ireland, and from there she looks at her life and contemplates her future. Molly McCloskey's prose is inviting as if she is asking the reader to think along with her character, Alice, about how we have lived our lives, treated our loved ones and what we need to do today to embrace the life we have. This is a touching and unique novel, wise words for us all.

Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

Although the story first drew my attention, I found the main character boring and depressing. As the story unfolded, the back and forth in time negatively impacted the flow of the story.

This book was dull. Basically the story of an American girl who comes to Ireland, does the pub scene, marries someone I really do not think she really loved, corresponds with her mom back home, has an affair with some random friend of a friend, terminates her marriage and works aboard doing journalism. Lots of deep thinking and reflection on her part throughout the book but basically a sad commentary on the life of the life of Alice , the main character.

Just too much. I felt buried and overwhelmed. The main character was from the U.S. but the narrative was stilted. Not my favorite.