I appreciate the opportunity to review this, but I still haven't read it after five years and likely will not. Thank you anyway!

This is the story of a friendship between Feron and Merry and the ties that bind even when you don’t see each other for years.
Both so very different but going through all the seasons that friendships go through.Beautiful book about the complexities of female friendships.
Thankyou Netgalley and publishers for this ARC.

Old Lovegood Girls tells the story of college roommates who remain friends, and writers, until they grow old. The novel repeats key phrases and advice the women received throughout their lives and illustrates how it impacts each character's decisions. The stories of Chekhov are mentioned and referenced. Gail Godwin provides a great book for discussion groups. Lovely novel.

A complex tale of friendship! I really enjoyed this book. The author did a masterful job weaving the story of Feron and Merry’s lives with the influence each has on the other and their writing ambitions, while also revealing some surprises. The supporting characters are interesting and also illustrate the changes in society over their long friendship. This book moves at a leisurely pace, but I found it absorbing reading.

I tried. I really did, Campus novels and stories of female friendship are among my favorites. The writing was strong, but I simply could never connect with Feron or Merry and sadly quit at 25%.. I did not cover this book on my blog or Bookstagram.

In this nostalgic look back into the mid 2oth century the lives of two women at Old Lovegood junior college become intertwined. Although their school days together are shortened by tragedy they are instrumental to each other throughout life. By juxtaposing the lives of these two women, Merry and Feron, the novel reflects on the traditions of the old South and those of the New York intellectual and family and friendship in connection and disconnection. The two women are writers, and in appearance and personality are opposites, begging the comparison to fairytales old (Snow White and Rose Red) and new (Frozen.) An offering from Gail Godwin is as welcome as one from Elena Ferrante.

What a beautiful book! Godwin's latest book was one worth waiting for.
This story depicts a fascinating friendship between the 2 main characters, Feron and Merry. The subject of friendship involves such complex motivations, needs and wants and the relationship between Feron and Merry certainly proved that tenet. What was especially intriguing, thanks to the author's writing skills, regarded a friendship where the friends didn't see each for years on end. There was a healthy degree of competition between the two, who both were writers at heart.
The life histories of the two were so masterfully interwoven. Their distinct lives and loved seemed so independent from each other and yet, the connection was always so strong. The author's creation of "reference auras" were so memorable. The is a book whose message will remain with you long after you've finished reading it.

Old Lovegood Girls by Gail Godwin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The amazing Old Lovegood Girls is a story of friendship between two women who become talented writers. It recalled personal memories going back many years. An extraordinary read, it was filled with thoughts I wanted to ponder, remember, and cherish.

THE STORY: Finalizing room assignments for Lovegood Junior College in 1958, the dean decides to make some adjustments and places Feron Hood with Merry Jellicoe. Feron has had an unpleasant childhood and Merry might be a good influence. These oddly compatible young women become friends, but a tragic event causes Merry to leave school after one year.

Ten years later they inhabit different worlds and have not been in touch, but their friendship remains. Feron says that once someone is in your 'reference aura' they stay there forever. Over all the years, each is a touchstone for the other.

FIRST LINE: "The dean and the dorm mistress stood brooding over the student housing plans laid out on the rosewood conference table."

WHAT I THOUGHT: Such beautiful writing evokes memories about our own lives. I read Old Lovegood Girls on my Kindle, but I need to buy a hardcover copy so I can underline and write in it (blasphemy, I know). So many memories began to surface with this book that I felt the need to reel them in to continue reading. A more careful reading would let me explore each personal memory, what it meant then and what it means now.

The story constantly circles back revealing more and reminding the reader. At first I found that repetitious and a bit annoying, until I settled into the ebb and flow of the story. The ending seemed abrupt, but it drew together the themes of continuity and change. The technique woke me to a bad habit I have developed in this overstimulated world. Snap decisions. Superficial judging. Both save time but miss meaning.

BOTTOM LINE: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. I read lots of books I end up loving but this one stole my heart. I felt it was written for me alone. I hope other readers will feel the same way.

Disclaimer: A copy of Old Lovegood Girls by Atlantic Monthly Press/Net Galley for an honest review.

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing (May 5, 2020)
ISBN-10: 1632868229
ISBN-13: 978-1632868220

Gail Godwin is a three-time National Book Award finalist and the bestselling author of twelve critically acclaimed novels, including Unfinished Desires, A Mother and Two Daughters, Violet Clay, Father Melancholy's Daughter, Evensong, The Good Husband, and Evenings at Five. She is also the author of The Making of a Writer: Journals, 1961--1963, the first of two volumes, edited by Rob Neufeld. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants for both fiction and libretto writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has written libretti for ten musical works with the composer Robert Starer. She lives in Woodstock, New York.

I'm a longtime Gail Godwin fan yet I struggled to get through this one. I love her work so I'm planning to try again in the fall; perhaps that's the best time of year to read a book with a school setting, particularly when you take into consideration the havoc that covid-19 is creating in so many readers' reading lives; I'm probably not immune from the ill effects.

This is a book about the friendships that bind women. They met in college and their friendship spans decades, even when they are not in touch. Gail Godwin has such a way with making characters feel real and this book did not disappoint. I enjoyed the characters and missed them when the book was finished.

Another beautifully written novel by Gail Godwin.A story of women’s friendship in all its complexity. I was so involved neither the story the women I hated to put nthe book down.#netgalley# oldlovegoodgirls

The friendship of women--complicated, troubled, rich, and sometimes turbulent--is the fascinating centerpiece of Gail Godwin's latest intricately woven, sensitive novel. As always, Godwin spins a dense web of character and theme, proving once again she's a master of the literary read.

This book reminded me why I don’t typically read literary fiction. It is well written, but did no keep me interested.

Experience tells. Godwin’s long and distinguished career is evident in the layered richness of her new novel which presents itself in various guises as it bestrides the decades of two women’s lives and their enduring friendship. Feron and Merry, with their unlikely names, belong to an earlier era - as, at times, the novel seems too as well - but they are creatures of fascination. Do we believe in them or their backstories? Possibly not, yet their dilemmas, writing lives and bond with each other exert a real pull. Godwin spins a complex web and it’s a pleasure to see her threading in a throwaway line here, a recollected scene there. Stylish, substantial, satisfying.

I could find very little uplifting in this story of two girls who met in college as roommates for a couple of months, then hardly kept in touch (once a decade?) but each considered the other a best friend. The plot just didn't work very well for me. There is lots of repetition in the story telling, way more than necessary it seems. The girls were interesting but shallowly developed though much was hinted at. The first third or so of the book was quite good and promising but the remaining two thirds just sort of drifted passed. All major milestones (weddings, funerals, etc.) were recounted briefly after the fact so there was no opportunity for emotional ties to the characters.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the ARC to read and review.

Looking for a deep read of two very different women who become life long friends? Old Lovegood Girls is the story of Merry Jellicoe and Feron Hood. Put together as room mates at Lovegood College for Women in 1958,. they only get to spend a short time together, but this chance connection continues throughout their lives. Fledgling writers, they act as catalysts to the other in terms of their future endeavors. A very literary read, as the women compare their writings to Chekov stories, it is a satisfying friendship novel.

I so love Gail Godwin’s writing but this book was a challenge for me. I couldn’t identify with the characters as it seemed a time before me, and it also was very stereotypical. I thought it was slow moving. I would not recommend the title.

Gail Goodwin is a remarkable writer. I have read prior work of hers and was pleased to receive this for review.
Thank you to the publisher and to Net Galley for the opportunity. I highly recommend this books.

This is a interesting story of strong women friendships that can stand the test of time. Two women meet at
l at the Lovegood Junior College for Girls. One of the girls is quite privileged and spoiled. The other girl is not privileged and has dark secrets she is hiding. The two could not be more different yet they become close friends. Over time after school they lead completely different lives yet they still feel their close friendship has made an indelible impression upon themselves. When they need each other they meet again and find their friendship does indeed stand the tests of time.

The writing is outstanding, the story complex with marvelous charcters. I highly recommend this enjoyable read from author Gail Goodwin. Review is cross posted.

A wonderfully well told story of two women who are completely different but form a string friendship. Is it a healthy friendship? That's for you to find out. If you haven't discovered Gail Goodwin yet start with this winner and immerse yourself in her realistic prose. Happy reading!

If you haven’t read Gail Godwin’s beautifully-written realistic novels about Southern women, you may have time to do so during lockdown.   In  her brilliant new novel, "Old Lovegood Girls," Godwin tells the engrossing story of  two women writers who become friends at Lovegood College, an elite Southern women’s college.   The book begins at a slight distance from the two main characters–crucial for the introduction of two heroines who experiment with different forms of literary fiction and New Journalism. The dean  and the dorm mistress  converse about the problem of a suitable roommate for Feron Hood, a student accepted at the last minute. Her uncle, a lawyer, is the grandson of one of the first Lovegood alumnae, and he says Feron needs a safe environment:  she has run away from an abusive stepfather, lived on the streets of Chicago, and then taken a bus to  North Carolina, where she showed up in his office unannounced.

Who would feel at home with Feron? Finally they decide that charming Meredith Grace Jellicoe, a rich tobacco farmer’s daughter, would be a good match.  And this pairing is in a way like writing a story: the dean and dorm mistress set them on a lifelong course of friendship and storytelling.

Class matters:  you can’t pair a girl from a working-class family shaped by a mother’s alcoholism and stepfather’s violence with a privileged young woman like Merry Grace unless you expect complications. On the surface, everything is fine. Feron likes Merry Grace, but is envious of her background.  Merry Grace is not only from a happy family but is lovely with her honey-gold hair and unselfconsiousness.  Feron thinks enviously: “Everything was contained in her. As though God, when making her, took great pains to color all of her inside the lines.”
Their mutual love of Chekhov, and Godwin’s own analysis of his graceful style, help us understand the shaping of the Feron’s and Merry Grace’s writing careers. For a creative writing assignment in English class, Merry Grace uses Chekhov’s “Typhus,” the story of a young Russian soldier who becomes ill and infects his sister, as the template of a story she writes about a girl who comes down with influenza in 1918. After reading this, Feron hones her own autographical short story about a middle-aged woman who pours out her problems to a girl on the bus. But Feron doesn’t begin to write seriously until years later in New York when she sees a short story by Merry Grace in The Atlantic Monthly.

Godwin’s characterization of their contrasting personalities gives us insight into the anger and haughtiness of Feron, who  prefers house-sitting in New York City to renting an apartment, and writes novels that are retellings of very dark fairy tales.  Sometimes I thought, “Feron, do you have to be so weird?”   Merry Grace, who is the much better friend,  turned out to be the unlucky one in a way: her parents died in the middle of her freshman year, and Merry Grace had to leave school and take over the tobacco business.  Merry Grace is truly supportive of reserved Feron, who is seldom, if ever, there for her, but even Merry Grace is exasperated at one point.  But their correspondence helps them work out their approaches to writing. And Merry Grace’s involvement with a black church while she is researching a freed slave’s invention of a tobacco process is life-changing.  Though Godwin never comes out and says this, it is the African-American women in this Bible study group who are Merry Grace’s true friends. 

In case you’re wondering, "Old Lovegood Girls" is nothing like Mary McCarthy’s The Group–but brilliant in a different way. Godwin is fascinated by the process of writing, and shows us how it’s done.