“…as small and unimportant as I mostly felt, the egotism of youth hadn’t left me, and I placed myself firmly and squarely at the center of the universe.”
It’s 1998. Isabel Rosen is a senior at Wilder College, a prestigious school in New England, where she is one of only a few Jewish students. She’s always been a bit of a follower, trying to find her place yet stay out of the spotlight. But a sexual encounter with an Israeli student confuses and frightens her, and she feels both angry and vulnerable.
She’s always thought about being a writer, following in the footsteps of her late mother, an artist, but her father tries to convince her there’s no money in that. And then she takes a senior writing seminar taught by R.H. Connelly, once a renowned poet expected to conquer the world, who now works for a local paper.
It’s the first time anyone has really praised her work and told her she has promise. It’s not long before Isabel starts an affair with her married professor, and he gets her thinking about pursuing a writing career and staying in New England with him. She knows, however, that this can’t last, and at a crucial juncture, she makes a decision that changes a number of lives.
I thought this was fantastic. It’s set against the backdrop of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, which sets the stage for a lot of interesting conversations, but this is more a story about Isabel coming into her own. It’s a sharply written debut that dazzled me.
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