Larry's Party (edit title)

Jisha M edited the awards of Larry's Party 3 days ago.

• Added an award: Orange Prize
• Added year of an award: Orange Prize 1997

Lisa M edited the quotations of Larry's Party Friday, October 30 2009.

• Added a quotation: “When Larry was a little kid his mother warned him about the dangers of public drinking fountains. “No one ever, ever puts their mouth right on the spout, “she said, “because they can pick up other people’s germs, and who knows what kind of disease you’ll get.” This was bad news for Larry. At that age he liked to stand on tiptoe and press his lips directly on the cool silvery water spout, rather than trying to catch the spray in his mouth as it looped unpredictably upward. Besides, his mother’s caution didn’t make sense, since if no one ever touched the spout, how could there be any germs? He recalls—he must have been six or seven at the time – that he presented this piece of logic to his mother, but she only shook her headful of squashed curls and sad sadly, wisely, “There will always be people in this world who don’t know any better.” He pictures these people – the people who didn’t know any better – as a race of clumsy unfortunates. Those people who mowed their lawns but failed to rake up the clippings, for instance. People who didn’t know any better stored cake flour and other staples in their original paper bags so that their cupboards swarmed with ants and beetles.”

Shelfari edited the description of Larry's Party Friday, July 31 2009.

• The San Diego Tribune called The Stone Diaries a "universal study of what makes women tick." With Larry's Party Carol Shields has done the same for men. Larry Weller, born in 1950, is an ordinary guy made extraordinary by his creator's perception, irony, and tenderness. Larry's Party gives us, as it were, a CAT scan of his life, in episodes between 1977 and 1997, that seamlessly flash backward and forward. We follow this young floral designer through two marriages and divorces, and his interactions with his parents, friends, and a son. Throughout, we witness his deepening passion for garden mazes--so like life, with their teasing treachery and promise of reward. Among all the paradoxes and accidents of his existence, Larry moves through the spontaneity of the seventies, the blind enchantment of the eighties, and the lean, mean nineties, completing at last his quiet, stubborn search for self. Larry's odyssey mirrors the male condition at the end of our century with targeted wit, unerring poignancy, and faultless wisdom.

Shelfari edited the contributors of Larry's Party Monday, July 27 2009.

• Added a contributor: Carol Shields: (Primary Author)