Fiona Range

Rating:
Summary: Very Highly Recommended.
Review: Although Fiona Range, the title character of her fourth book is the main focus of this story, author Mary McGarry Morris ultimately paints the portrait of a flawed family trying to maintain its place in a very confusing and complex world. Fiona Range is a satisfying, if not always easy look into the world of a prominent New England family and its one wild child. When she is quite young, Fiona is abandoned by her mother; she is denied paternity by her father, Patrick Grady; she is raised by relatives who do not understand her petulant behavior and who are constantly puzzled by her absolute lack of judgment. Fiona is 30. For the past few years, she has worked as a waitress in Chester's Coffee Shop in Dearborn, Massachusetts. Her life is stuck in a constant cycle of rebellion, failed relationships, and an endless, empty horizon. As much as she yearns to be part of the family who raised her, she is repulsed by their shallow lives and their almost insatiable need to present a perfect face to the community. Her Uncle Charles Grady is a prominent judge. Her Aunt Arlene is the perfect wife and mother, volunteering in the community and taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves. To the world, the Grady family is a model of success. Their three children are educated, employed and functioning members of society. Jack is a computer whiz. Ginny runs a day care. Elizabeth, the schoolteacher, is engaged to a wonderful doctor from New York. Their lives are picture perfect, if you don't look too close. And then there's Fiona. The trouble with you, Fiona, is you don't think before you act. The trouble with you, Fiona, is you don't think. The trouble with you, Fiona, is you. The trouble with Fiona is you. The trouble. Fiona is the trouble. There are a lot of issues raised in this book. Not all of them are resolved, but they're out there for the reader's inspection. This is not a book you read in one night. You must pace yourself in order to endure Fiona's wild abandon, Elizabeth's neuroses, Patrick Grady's madness, and ultimately, the Grady family's undoing. I liked all the characters in this book. No one was perfect and there were no Hollywood endings, all neatly tied up with red ribbons. The people who make this story work are flawed and they all struggle with life's hardest questions. In other words, these people could be REAL. And, to me, that's what quality fiction should create: real people, flaws and all, dealing with life's triumphs and tragedies, while trying to make their way in the world without inflicting too much damage on themselves and those around them. Very Highly Recommended.

Terry H. Mathews Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: I LOVED IT
Review: Where do I start? At the beginning of course. Fiona's character jumps off the page from the start, in fact her life was thrilling to the end of the novel. Morris once again paints a complete portrait of a woman. By the time I finished I felt I knew Fiona inside and out. If she waited on me at the local diner here in town, I'd spot her before I read her nametage. But it wasn't just Fiona. This book is packed with 3-dimensional characters. The judge-what a crafty, yet somehow still respectable man. (By the way, has anyone stopped to follow how Morris portrays judges in her four novels? That would be an interesting essay itself) His wife, Aunt Arlene-keeping up appearances no matter the cost. Dear Elizabeth-Almost as complex a character as Fiona. Get this book, you won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: I should get my wasted time and money back.
Review: Fiona Range is a good book for someone who does not know good literature. There are so many typos that it is distracting to someone who knows how to use grammar. Tbe plot is too simplisitic for a book this long--maybe better suited to a novella or a short-story. Also, the characters, excepting for Fiona, were very shallow and needed more purpose. Considering that the author has written much more enjoyable novels previous to this--it leaves the reader with the sense that it was intended as a money-maker, not a heart-warmer.

Rating:
Summary: Undoubtedly one of the best books I've read all year...
Review: After sludging through a few bad novels, I picked up Fiona Range, expecting something similar to her Songs in Ordinary Time. Although I enjoyed Songs immensely, I was very much surprised and excited to meet Fiona. Fiona Range is a troubled thirty-something living in a small town where everything is everyone else's business. She is haunted by her mother, who disappeared shortly after Fiona's birth and a semi-psycho man she knows to be her father. Added to that are her aunt and uncle's family, with whom she grew up with, that expects Fiona to be just as perfect as they are. Fiona often finds herself in compromising situations. She drinks a little too much, finds one-night stands a bit too often and falls in lust/love too easily. Needless to say, this novel has a ton of potential. Mary McGarry Morris did such a wonderful job with this book, with well developed characters, a lot of action and plenty of tears to go around. A great read!

Rating:
Summary: take a pass
Review: truly bad. I read four books per week, and maybe twice a year don't finish one. Fiona Range is one of those. I don't know which was worse:
1. the egregious typos -- authors get to read the galleys before they go to press -- was Morris too lazy, or what?
2. lack of plot, dialogue that does not progress the story, repetitive scenes

Rating:
Summary: She's written better
Review: I found this book SO exasperating. Fiona is totally unsympathetic. Within a single paragraph, she thinks she's being dismissed by her family, then she likes them, then her feelings are hurt by some perceived slight, and on and on it goes. I thought it was carelessly written; it felt very lazy to me - it could have done with serious editing. Plus, I couldn't shake the feeling that the book was set in the 40s or 50s, which is fine, if the book REALLY were set in those decades; I had to keep reminding myself this was supposedly set in the current day. I finished the book because I just had to see if it was going to be ludicrous to the very end, and it was. Even the "happy ending" was apathetic and tacked-on.

I've liked the author's other books, so I was most disappointed when I finally got my hands on this one. I did finish it, but I sure won't be passing it on to my friends!

Rating:
Summary: So-So
Review: i've read all of Mary McGarry Morris's books and this one looked interesting.... and it was. The interaction among the characters as having grown up together in a small town was very true to life and my heart ached for poor Fiona. I thought the way Morris handled Fiona's loneliness and "apartness" from her surrogate family was absolutely excellent. I had a hunch early on where the plot was going, but the story held me interested enough to race through to the end. And of course the conclusion was a bit predictable.

What was TOTALLY irritating and distracting, though, were all the typos and mistakes in the text! Didn't anybody EDIT this? What a shame! It almost seemed at points as if somebody had dictated the manuscript into a voice-recognition program because not only were there mispellings but words that sounded somewhat similiar in place of the correct ones. For this most annoying distraction I have to give this book fewer stars than it really deserves.

Rating:
Summary: Five-plus, from a grateful, diehard fan...
Review: I'm one of those people who dislikes re-reading books, or seeing a movie more than once. I'm a novelist myself (unpublished, but hopeful), and I like to gulp as much fiction and media as I can, but rarely go back over old ground.

The only movie I watch over and over is the Coen Brothers' "Miller's Crossing" and the only books I seem able to re-read are those by Mary McGarry Morris.

For one thing, each time I re-visit one of her novels, I find there are new layers of meaning I missed the first, and even the second time. For example, the first time I read Fiona Range, I, like some of the others who have reviewed it here, found it to be less tragic and moving than her other books, "A Dangerous Woman," "Vanished" (my favorite; it should have won the Pulitzer) and "Songs In Ordinary Time."

However, I am currently re-reading it now and, contrary to what I thought was going to happen (I knew the ending, so how could it be surprising and interesting?) it has turned out to be even better BECAUSE I know the ending. Now it truly does seem tragic, a magnificent character study of a Woman Interrupted...a woman whose whole life revolves around the black hole of lost identity, a giant lie perpetuated by those who pretend to have cared for her.

It's a about monstrous hypocrisy and what happens to people when they are kept from essential knowledge about themselves. It's about cruelty that drives people to self-destruct. Damn, it's good.

After Faulkner and Joyce, Mary McGarry Morris has had the most significant effect on my writing. Joyce Carol Oates, Richard Ford, Russell Barnes ("Affliction"), Alice McDermott, Annie Prioux, Stephen King, Toni Morrison...they are all to be studied, and I owe them so much. But Mary is the greatest writer in America today. As another reviewer here noted, her characters are fresh, real, surprising, devoid of stereotype, human to the bone. No one writes them living and breathing as she does.

With their many flaws and their heartaches, their jerkiness, their addictions, their violence and their cuteness, they are truly unforgettable. The old expression, "To know her, is to love her," is what makes these books keepers. Thanks, Mary, for the gifts.

Rating:
Summary: My Nutty Friend Fiona
Review: For some reason, I was completely taken with this book. I hate sappy, romantic stories or ones that have overly depressing endings. As a 30 year old like Fiona (though married), I really connected to this character. Fiona is more like a beloved old friend who keeps doing things that really tick me off. Her actions often seem completely rash from the reader's perspective. However, having made irrational, highly emotional choices myself (what woman hasn't?), I find Fiona Range to be the only book I've ever read with a main character that could easily be someone I know or, to some extent, me. And, the best part, the author presents her story without judging Fiona. The reader is allowed to do that herself. I am still recommending this to my friends. I really enjoyed it!

Rating:
Summary: Amiable Effort
Review: You can almost see MMM trying to bring out the characters, to shed some sort of three-dimensional light on them, as well as giving some meaning to their interactions. There are too many characters, however, and past the 200th page you kind of stop caring whether Jack wants to live up to his fathers expectations, or that Elizabeth is torn up inside about her feelings. Fiona keeps making stupid decisions and having sex with every TOm Dick and Harry that knocks on her door. Not to mention the fact she keeps associating herself with Patrick, after what he's done to her. She acts like a battered woman, but meanwhile she's supposed to be some sort of strong, outspoken diva. Perhaps it shows up her different faucets, but afer the fifth time she hangs up on Patrick and the thrid time she gets caught trying to get in some guy's pants, it gets kind of annoying. This could have been a very insightful book, instead, it reads like a soap opera. I hate soap operas.