Rating: 
Summary: UNPUTDOWNABLE!
Review: "In our rented house my bedroom was right over the kitchen, the room where my parents and their partying friends always ended up ... So why, if I could sleep through that commotion, would someone's silence wake me?
When I opened my eyes she was standing in front of my window, gazing out toward the pond. She was smoking a cigarette, and as she exhaled, the smoke billowed through the screen so it looked as though the night were steaming right outside the window."
From the moment eleven-year-old Paul Finley meets Laura Coe Pettit, he is besotted. The mesmerising young poet will capture his heart and haunt his soul forever. Over the following years, as the awkward adolescent grows into manhood, his life becomes entwined with the enigmatic older woman as their worlds collide and the novel builds towards its inevitable, shattering climax.
Larry Watson has written a rich, beautifully crafted story about an obsessive and enduring love that lingers long after the final sentence. Some readers might find Laura a cold, unlikeable character but her selfish-at-times, abrasive attitude is needed to balance out the softer, sensitive Paul who would otherwise be too weak and wimpish.
I had never read Larry Watson until I picked up a copy of Laura on impulse. I was drawn by the seductive cover, the back-page blurb got my curiosity, and I was hooked from page one. I really did find it unputdownable!
Kelvin MacGregor
Rating:
Summary: Watson shows he can tell a good story anywhere
Review: A story about a young boy's lifelong obsession with an older woman is hardly new but there's something in Watson's book that makes it seem like it is. From the first page your drawn into Paul's world. His voice is crisp and clear, melancholy without being maudlin. It doesn't matter that the object of his desire, Laura, is not a very nice person. A lot of people spend their lives in love with not-so-nice people. It's the person whom, for better or worse, Paul builds his life around - even though he seems to have understood from the beginning that this isn't the best thing for him. Watson builds peaks and valleys with each meeting between the two that keep the reader eager to see what will happen the next time. As Paul moves through the 50s, 60's and 70s he finds the Stones lyrics are still true: "You can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need."
Rating:
Summary: A sublime masterpiece.
Review: I admit, I'm a little biased when it comes to Larry Watson (he was one of my professors at the University Of Stevens Point in Wisconsin). However, this book has a wonderful grace about it, by any standard. It engulfs you and touches deep. The longing - the despair - the naive magic of youth. It's a book which makes time stop (as the best books do). My words do not describe the experience well enough. For it is the experience of reading Larry Watson - letting your mind live through his characters. Laura is truly a great book.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, Beautiful, Flawed, Sorry People
Review: I am bit biased toward Larry Watson and his work, too. This novel is a real change from his Montana based stories, and I was skeptical at first. I wondered how he could place himself within an eleven year old boy who comes from Boston.... but I need not have worried for long. As usual, this is a beautifully written, lyrical piece that is almost poetic in its beauty. The trouble I had with it, though, is that neither Paul nor Laura was a very sympathetic character. By the end of the book I had the feeling that I had been cheated in a way, for I felt that there had to have been something to redeem Paul and his horrendous obsession with Laura.... Laura having Alzheimers is just, I think. Serves her right, is what I really think. I do not remember a character so thoroughly unlikeable in recent fiction as Laura Coe Pettit. Maybe I just too strongly relate to the characters of Martha and Catherine. In any rate, this is a beautifully written story and I am recommending it to anyone who loves finely wrought tale.
Rating: 
Summary: Good!
Review: I am only 15, when I read this book, I was confused by it. I kept reading it and finally I finished the book. It came to a point where I had to write a critical analysis for it in my English class. My teacher had so many questions about the book that I didn't quite know for sure what the answers were myself. I couldn't figure out why Larry Watson wrote this book, what was the theme? I came to many ideas, but settled on one; maybe he wants to tell us that we should open our eyes and see the great things that are right in front of us that we didn't even know they're there. I figured Paul based his life around Laura and he couldn't see how much his girlfriends, mother, father, sister, wife, or kids meant to him, until he lost his wife and kids for a while. He couldn't see that he had this wonderful life because his obssesion with Laura blocked everything else out, but Laura. I'm not quite sure that I'm right about it but, I really enjoyed reading this book as my second novel.
Rating:
Summary: Good!
Review: I am only 15, when I read this book, I was confused by it. I kept reading it and finally I finished the book. It came to a point where I had to write a critical analysis for it in my English class. My teacher had so many questions about the book that I didn't quite know for sure what the answers were myself. I couldn't figure out why Larry Watson wrote this book, what was the theme? I came to many ideas, but settled on one; maybe he wants to tell us that we should open our eyes and see the great things that are right in front of us that we didn't even know they're there. I figured Paul based his life around Laura and he couldn't see how much his girlfriends, mother, father, sister, wife, or kids meant to him, until he lost his wife and kids for a while. He couldn't see that he had this wonderful life because his obssesion with Laura blocked everything else out, but Laura. I'm not quite sure that I'm right about it but, I really enjoyed reading this book as my second novel.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing--Fine Novel
Review: I have enjoyed Larry Watson's novels and find he does an excellent job at telling a story about flawed people with flawed lives (aren't we all?). Paul, at the tender age of 11, falls hopelessly in LOVE with the much older Laura, an unconventionally pretty, and soemwhat well known poet, who has plenty of hangups of her own. Paul spends his entire life longing for Laura -- so much so that he really just goes through the motions of living without much feeling or direction. The only thing he ever seems pationate about is his intermittent meetings with his obsession -- Laura. The novel almost reminded me of Forest Gump at times, with vignettes of his meetings with Laura and how he continues to long for her after their departures. I could hardly put the book down once I started to see where Paul's lack of direction led him and where he'd meet Laura next. The stength of the book is in the characterization of Paul AND the characters he didn't build. We get a glimpse of what his father, mother, and sister are like -- but only through Paul's eyes. They seem peripheral to the novel, and to Paul for that matter. And we build our picture of Laura through Paul's eyes, sometimes just from news clips and articles he reads. But we can understand these characters simply from their behavior and Paul's descriptions of them. If you have read Laura and like it, as I did, I would also recommend Larry's Party by Carol Shields.
Rating:
Summary: Very entertaining
Review: In the summer of 1955 in Vermont, eleven-year old Paul Finley meets Laura Coe Petit for the first time when she escapes for a breather and a smoke from the party hosted by his parents. Laura, a twenty-two year old rising poet, was smoking a cigarette outside Paul's bedroom window when she inadvertently woke him up. They briefly talk and for the rest of his life, Paul knows that Laura is the mark that he compares other people, especially women, and his own sense of essence to. Over the next thirty plus years, Paul and Laura have occasional brief encounters that further destroy any possible relationships the younger man may foster. Instead Paul remains obsessed with the woman he always knew he could never have. From the first time they met when he was a child she planned to seduce his father at that New England party. LAURA is a an entertaining cogitation on how far obsession can twist a person. The insightful story line is well written (as expected from Larry Watson), especially the background historical events that serve as a bigger stage for the meetings between Paul and Laura. The secondary cast provides reflection, impetus, and depth although Mr. Watson never showcases them as he concentrates on Paul's psyche. The lead protagonist's obsession turns him into something that seems more like a stalker and quixotically, a more humane individual. Mr. Watson shows why he is an award-winning author with this compassionate character study. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: A most compelling book by a highly skilled novelist!
Review: It is not often these days that I find a book that I literally can't put down, but this was one of those rare novels. Larry Watson's novel about a boy obsessed with an older woman is a most compelling read and takes us on a very interesting ride through the psyche of the narrator. The author is very skilled at his craft and the narrator's obsession with "Laura" is reflected in the way the story is written, focusing on Paul (nicknamed) Judge's lifelong love and obsession with the enigmatic poetess that he meets when he is only eleven years old when she slips in his bedroom to escape a party at her parents' summer home. This is an excellent novel, the best I've read in a very long time. I was happy to discover Mr. Watson's writing and his great storytelling abilities. This was, as I said, a book I literally couldn't put down. I highly recommend it to all. -M.Waldman, author of A FACE IN THE MOON
Rating:
Summary: A most compelling book by a highly skilled novelist!
Review: It is often these days that I find a book that I literally can't put down, but this was one of those rare novels. Larry Watson's novel about a boy obsessed with an older woman is a most compelling read and takes us on a very interesting ride through the psyche of the narrator. The author is very skilled at his craft and the narrator's obsession with "Laura" is reflected in the way the story is written, focusing on Paul (nicknamed) Judge's lifelong love and obsession with the enigmatic poetess that he meets when he is only eleven years old when she slips in his bedroom to escape a party at her parents' summer home. This is an excellent novel, the best I've read in a very long time. I was happy to discover Mr. Watson's writing and his great storytelling abilities. This was, as I said, a book I literally couldn't put down. I highly recommend it to all.
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