Bedrock

by Lisa Alther

Overview

A humorous journey from ’80s Manhattan to the wild side of small-town living, from bestselling author Lisa Alther Clea Shawn is exhausted by her life: her globe-trotting career as a travel photographer, her successful husband’s numerous liaisons, and the unrequited love she feels for her best friend, Elke. She decides to get away from her Manhattan townhouse—and a city in the throws of the ’80s—and move to Roches Ridge, the picturesque Vermont town she visits on a ski trip. Roches Ridge is quiet, sleepy, and seemingly unchanged by the times. But Clea soon discovers this small town has big secrets—and even bigger characters. From the Don Johnson look-alike who introduces his salon’s clientele to punk hairstyles and the band of militant lesbians camped out in Mink Creek to the romance-writing cosmetics saleswoman turned stalker and the strapping hillbilly with a predilection for animal skeleton art, Roches Ridge is livelier than Clea originally thinks.  . . . A rollicking small-town adventure, Bedrock features Alther’s signature mix of unexpected, humorous characters, and a charming heroine on the long bumpy road to self-actualization. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lisa Alther, including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781453205778
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	12/14/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	325
Sales rank:	296,322
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Lisa Alther is the bestselling author of five novels, among them the critically acclaimed Kinflicks, and a family memoir, Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree. She was born in Kingsport, Tennessee, in 1944, one of five children in a close-knit family influenced by both its Southern and “Yankee” roots. After attending Wellesley College and working in book publishing, she moved to Vermont, where she began to write and raise her daughter. Alther currently divides her time among Tennessee, Vermont, and New York City.

What People are Saying About This

Marilyn French

"Bedrock is a soothe to read, but humor is only one of its graces. Lisa Alther writes with a profound acceptance of human variety and vaguery that is rare in this mean age and lifts the spirits."

Editorial Reviews

Funnier....and wiser than Kinflicks. --Irish Times, 9/1/90

Irish Times

An assortment of odd people inhabits Roches Ridge, Vermont: Loretta Gebo, beehived proprietor of Casa Loretta; Ishtar, owner of the rival Karma Cafe and renegade from a lesbian commune; Daryl Perkins, crippled, aspiring TV preacher, lusting after Loretta; Maureen Murphy, bitter spinster, trying to kill off her aged mother by taking her on exhausting ``pleasure'' trips. But it is to Roches Ridge that Clea Shawn flees to ``detox'' from her successful life--as photographer, wife of an international businessman, mother of two children in college, friend/would-be lover of sculptor Elke. Alther is a fine writer, able to move effortlessly from past to present and among her dramatis personae; and the crazy characters and tongue-in-cheek style exhibit flashes of the wit expected from the author of Kinflicks (LJ 3/1/76). Ultimately, though, the drama of Clea's life becomes tedious, and we never care as much about her as she does about herself.-- Francine Fialkoff, ``Library Journal''

Library Journal

One of the funniest madhouses around... Without ever diminishing the humor, Lisa Alther has managed the difficult fear of using the nuttiness [in our society] as a counterpoint to an examination of love in all its varieties and durations. -- Washington Post Book World, 5/21/90

Washington Post Book

Alison Laurie meets Armistead Maupin.... There is grandiosity about Alther's writing that any amount of wisecracks and small-town gossip cannot diminish. -- London Sunday Times, 8/19/90

London Sunday Times

An intensely funny exploration of the female psyche and its outward bounds... with an exceptional capacity to amuse and disturb. -- London List, 8/90

London List

Clea finds the intimacy she lacks in her marriage in her best friend Elke. The story of their 20-year-old repressed love for each other is the bedrock of the novel. Clea and Elke are temperamental opposites, equally strong-willed, consumed by passion for each other.... Bedrock is well-written and briskly paced, as teeming with eccentric characters and swirling with subplots as a Dickens novel. -- Atlanta Journal Constitution, 6/10/90

Atlanta Journal Constitutio