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Title: Get a new editor at Penguin!
Review: Although this book has a few good moments, they are unfortunately few and far between. One problem: the sense of time. It reads as if she just wrote it in "any time" and then decided (with the help of her editor?) to set it in 1960. As a result, most of the story reads as if it's anytime, except that every now and then Morris waves a little "1960 flag"--like mentioning a particular song on the radio or putting someone's bank book in the typewriter to enter a new balance. Very distracting! Also I believe that she truly WANTS us to feel compassion for her characters, but there are simply too many in this book--resulting in half-baked portraits of many people rather than fully presented characters whose motivations we can understand and appreciate. These are problems that should have been cleaned up by a talented editor at Penguin. Too bad she didn't have one.
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