From Powells.com
In both her novels and nonfiction, Lamott has an uncanny knack for breaking down complicated issues with common (albeit quirky) sense. Problems don't disappear; they just become infinitely more manageable in the light. She's obsessively honest a woman of ethics, fruitfully faulted. The San Francisco Chronicle points out, "Anne Lamott is walking proof that a person can be both reverent and irreverent in the same lifetime. Sometimes even in the same breath." Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life so thoroughly mixes the one with the other that you forget how they ever seemed distinct. For my money it's the best guide to writing around. Now Blue Shoe, her sixth novel, speaks to readers with the compassion, humor, and resiliency they've come to expect and maybe an extra dollop of wisdom since last time, thanks to more living. Dave, Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Mattie Ryder is a marvelously funny, well-intentioned, religious, sarcastic, tender, angry, and broke recently divorced mother of two young children. Then she finds a small rubber blue shoe-the kind you might get from a gumball machine-and a few other trifles that were left years ago in her deceased father's car. They seem to hold the secrets to her messy upbringing, and as she and her brother follow these clues to uncover the mystery of their past, she begins to open her heart to her difficult, brittle mother and the father she thought she knew. And with that acceptance comes an opening up to the possibilities of romantic love.
In a disarming blend of everyday life and the sublime, of reverence and irreverence, and of humor and grace, Anne Lamott speaks directly to our most closely held concerns, bringing comfort to anyone -all of us-whose family life can feel overwhelming and uncontainable.
Lamott's formidable storytelling gifts have gained her a large and passionate following, and anybody who has experienced the delightful humor and the canny understanding of her previous work will be similarly charmed by Blue Shoe.
Review
"Lamott infuses this peripatetic story of a womans struggles after a divorce with the same quirky brand of Christianity she explored in her wildly popular memoir, Traveling Mercies....Lots of charm in the details, not much for momentum." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Lamott's use of language allows us to see the smallest details from a fresh perspective, and her stories of motherhood and faith never fail to entertain and move us, all within the tightly wound ball of a good literary yarn....Lamott uses offbeat, descriptive language...and her story is as good as her funky turn of a phrase." Library Journal
Review
"Moving and funny, fetchingly irreverent and soulful, Blue Shoe is an absolute joy." Chicago Sun-Times
About the Author
Anne Lamott is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Some Assembly Required, Grace (Eventually), Plan B, Traveling Mercies, and Operating Instructions, as well as several novels, including Imperfect Birds, Rosie and Crooked Little Heart. A past recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an inductee to the California Hall of Fame, she lives in Northern California.