This novel is about group of girls who meet in a college creative writing course. We meet some of them years later when they gather on a Mississippi cruise boat to scatter the ashes of the wild girl of the bunch, Baby Ballou. What a name. Baby’s college roommate Harriett has never been in a relationship after losing her secret college love to — of course — Baby. Courtney is finally responding to years of her husband’s infidelity with an affair with fat, jolly, eccentric Gene who on the eve of her cruise gives her an ultimatum — pick me or your husband. Mysterious Anna is the famous romance novelist who refuses to reveal any of the intervening years’ tragedies — the loss of her baby, the loss of her second, adored husband. I was taken with each of these characters and loved the part of the narrative from the college years. But I could not understand the relevance of their college raft trip. Was Baby’s one-night stand on that trip really that significant to Harriet’s loss? It just didn’t read that way. I guess it was a way to justify the cruise and create resonance. I just didn’t feel like the end brought me any closure at all. Smith’s style was an abrupt shift from Harbach’s Art of Fielding which preceded it . I do like her characters, but it was more of a murky-river read after Harbach’s crystal pool. Ok, that was lame. I shouldn’t try. Especially in the face of writerly talent like Smith.
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