""Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney plumbs the depths of marriage, motherhood and friendship with warmth and wit. I devoured it in one gulp! Treat yourself to some Good Company."" —Maria Semple, author of Today Will Be Different
A warm, incisive new novel about the enduring bonds of marriage and friendship from Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author of the instant New York Times bestseller The Nest
Flora Mancini has been happily married for more than twenty years. But everything she thought she knew about herself, her marriage, and her relationship with her best friend, Margot, is upended when she stumbles upon an envelope containing her husband's wedding ring—the one he claimed he lost one summer when their daughter, Ruby, was five.
Flora and Julian struggled for years, scraping together just enough acting work to raise Ruby in Manhattan and keep Julian's small theater company—Good Company—afloat. A move to Los Angeles brought their first real career successes, a chance to breathe easier, and a reunion with Margot, now a bona fide television star. But has their new life been built on lies? What happened that summer all those years ago? And what happens now?
With Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's signature tenderness, humor, and insight, Good Company tells a bighearted story of the lifelong relationships that both wound and heal us.
""Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney plumbs the depths of marriage, motherhood and friendship with warmth and wit. I devoured it in one gulp! Treat yourself to some Good Company."" —Maria Semple, author of Today Will Be Different
A warm, incisive new novel about the enduring bonds of marriage and friendship from Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author of the instant New York Times bestseller The Nest
Flora Mancini has been happily married for more than twenty years. But everything she thought she knew about herself, her marriage, and her relationship with her best friend, Margot, is upended when she stumbles upon an envelope containing her husband's wedding ring—the one he claimed he lost one summer when their daughter, Ruby, was five.
Flora and Julian struggled for years, scraping together just enough acting work to raise Ruby in Manhattan and keep Julian's small theater company—Good Company—afloat. A move to Los Angeles brought their first real career successes, a chance to breathe easier, and a reunion with Margot, now a bona fide television star. But has their new life been built on lies? What happened that summer all those years ago? And what happens now?
With Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's signature tenderness, humor, and insight, Good Company tells a bighearted story of the lifelong relationships that both wound and heal us.
Critiques-
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Narrator Marin Ireland expertly shares the story of two couples through the ups and downs of their complex, long-standing friendship. The Good Company of the title is a theater group that three of the four friends were active in. It could also refer to the value of long-term, intertwined relationships as their dynamics shift. Ireland serves as a sympathetic narrator and supplies unique voices to bring the characters to life. Julian, one of the founders of The Good Company, has the strong voice of a leader. His wife, Flora, displays a wide range of emotions while navigating her roles as wife, mother, and friend. Daughter Ruby and best friend Margot are also given voices to highlight the layers of their relationships. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
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February 15, 2021
A tale of two marriages and a long-buried secret. Thirteen years ago, when their daughter, Ruby, was 5 and they were having the happiest summer of their lives, Flora's husband, Julian, lost his wedding ring in a pond. The pond was on a property in upstate New York where Julian's theater group--Good Company--was putting on their annual outdoor play. There was a photo taken of the family sitting on the steps with their best friends, Margot and David, all leaning together, arms entwined around Ruby. Now Ruby is graduating from high school, and Flora is looking for the photograph to frame as a gift. In the process, she finds something else: the wedding ring that was supposed to be in the pond. While that unfortunate situation is unfolding in the present, flashbacks take us to the history of the friendships. Along the way, the characters' working worlds are depicted in absorbing detail: Margot is a megastar on a hospital TV series, Flora is a former Broadway singer and dancer, now a voice-over artist, David is--or was, actually--a cardiac surgeon. One of the best scenes in the book is the night David and Margot meet, over the body of a heart attack victim during Shakespeare in the Park. Always the New York maven, Sweeney nails the Central Park setting--"teenagers shrieking, the occasional smash of a bottle of beer morphing into a million glittering emeralds on the pavement"--and amusingly notes the many different versions of the story that survive over years of retelling. No one can agree how David ended up onstage or how they got to the Chinese restaurant afterward, but Margot "knew her version was--if not the most accurate--the best." All that said, this novel is far quieter than Sweeney's hit debut, The Nest (2016), and the characters are less well developed. We should know Flora best, but Margot is more clearly drawn (which would be no surprise to Flora, always second fiddle). While a little thin, plotwise, Sweeney's second novel lives up to its title: warm, witty, and interesting.COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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February 15, 2021
D'Aprix Sweeney follows up her debut novel, The Nest (2016), with this character-driven story exploring the lives and laments of two couples. Flora and Julian are finally feeling financially stable since finding steady jobs in L.A., Flora doing regular voice-over work and Julian starring in a television show; officially dedicating more of his time to his acting than his perpetually struggling theater company back in New York, Good Company. Their daughter, Ruby, has just graduated high school and Flora is hunting for a picture taken when Ruby was five, at Good Company's summer theater upstate, with the three of them and their best friends, Margot and David. What she doesn't expect to find is Julian's original wedding ring, the one he claimed to have lost that same summer, sending Flora down memory lane, questioning everything she believed about her marriage and her best friend. Masterfully building character (although Julian and David get the short shrift) and dropping revelations through flashbacks, D'Aprix Sweeney's writing is smooth and propelling. Readers of introspective, relational novels will devour this. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The Nest was a bona fide megahit, and with plenty of fanfare already generating, fans are primed for Good Company.COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
