“Writers & Lovers: a Novel,” Grove Press, by Lily King
In Lily King’s novel, “Writers & Lovers,” a struggling writer works as a waitress in the vicinity of Harvard Square, trying without success to make ends meet.
As the title suggests, King injects the writer’s love life into the story. The result is a down-to-earth saga of an extremely bright and likable single woman wrestling with sexual desires, emotional dreads — and the difficulties of finishing her first novel.
The narrative is thick with literary talk and bookish issues. But it also covers more mundane matters, often in the restaurant where the novel’s heroine, Casey, waits tables with increasing discontent and little financial reward.
The story at times moves slowly. There are scenes in which Casey plays cards with and observes the antics of two little boys whose father, a writing teacher, has become a widower and has his eye on Casey. Around that plot development, Casey laments her financial woes, her exhausting restaurant work, her medical maladies and, poignantly, her mother’s death.
It’s easy to pull for Casey. She’s wise, funny and clearly lovable. You root for her to meet the right guy, get the right job and finish that novel so an agent and editor might actually read it.
But “Writers & Lovers,” while built around an agreeable character, is heavier on discourse than on drama — a book about writers seeking out writers and what feeds writers’ inner needs.
King gained wide notice and critical success with her 2014 novel, “Euphoria,” about the entangled lives of three young anthropologists examining gender and sexual customs among South Pacific Islanders in the early 1930s, much like Margaret Mead.
“Euphoria” has a darkness and tension to its plot as its characters explore unconventional sexual roles in a remote, primitive culture.
“Writer’s & Lovers,” while an engaging portrait of a woman confronting modern hardships in the book trade and in her romantic life, is less intense and provides much less impact.
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Online://www.lilykingbooks.com/
Kendal Weaver, The Associated Press