Unlike many of the previous reviewers, I really enjoyed this book, both the structure and the writing. I liked the way we got little snippets of each character's life, then moved on to the next, then circled back...All along I was trying to figure out how they would all intersect - and that was the only disappointing part of the book - the ending, as one reviewer put it, felt rushed, and also contrived. It almost felt like she got tired of writing it at the end and just wanted it to be all wrapped up. ( )

Peripheral Vision starts out slowly. Ferguson's style tends to be more telling than showing, or perhaps it's simply more narrative than action. By chapter four I was confused. I didn't see any connection to the characters from one chapter to the next. I persevered, but it was slow going. Despite that, her characters became compelling to me. Although Sylvia is the main character, according to the back cover blurb, I found Iris and Ruby to be more compelling. The only thing that kept me reading was wondering how all these characters were connected. About two thirds of the way through there was a hint of connections. By this time the characters had also managed to become "real" to me and continuing was easy. By the time I finished this book I had to agree with the back blurb: "Peripheral Vision is a funny and clever novel about love and the lack of it; about motherhood, sight, and insight; and about the different ways we experience and transcend suffering."
One of the really great things about this novel is that I could not guess what was going to happen next. Nothing was predictable. At the same time, nothing that happened seemed wrong or forced. It all seemed natural. The story wrapped things up at the end, but not in a tidy little box. I like stories with a beginning, middle and end, but I don't like formulaic or 'pat' endings. I also don't care for stories that leave me wondering as much at the end as I did at the beginning. Peripheral Vision manages to find that middle ground. ( )

Metaphors used subtly rather than as a bludgeon are more to my liking. Vision in all its literal and figurative guises is bludgeoned to death in Patricia Ferguson’s Peripheral Vision. Ferguson steps in and, like an annoying eye doctor who keeps shoving lenses in front of your eyes to blurry your vision, and keeps interfering with this novel’s stories. While Ferguson’s love for even her most disagreeable characters shines through in the attention she gives to each little detail of their lives, the larger dramatic arc of this novel is completely manhandled. There was a distinct lack of balance between the many plot lines. While the plot line involving Sylvia, the eye surgeon and her longtime, now suffering friend, Will held little drama and mystery, the stories of Iris the depressed nurse and Ruby the depressed mother were much more intriguing. In the end, when all mysteries are finally revealed, I wanted to throw the book against the wall. Was I really reading Sylvia and Will’s story to discover in one final paragraph that (spoiler) they were related?! And what of poor George, Ruby’s son – was it really necessary to withhold the cause of his childhood eye accident for so long? And Iris? She was the biggest disappointment of all – to have read chapters in her point of view, then have her sister say we should have disregarded the Iris behind the curtain because she was damaged – well, that’s just an author putting her nose into a plot where it doesn’t belong. Iris should have been permitted to tell her own story, the whole one. And Ruby disappearing into an off-stage happy ending was a disservice to an otherwise finely wrought character. Vision was supposed to carry this novel’s load, but it’s back broke for me halfway through. ( )

As a memory this book exists in snatches: the protagonist's mother's bucolic dog kennels, cancer, explicit and unforgiving medical procedures, stiff wool post-war suits and the void where love should be. Brazenly British and medically intricate (one might say too intricate, especially if squeamish), Patricia Ferguson's first US-published novel tracks the subtly-intertwining lives of three 20th-century women across time. In doing so it breaks no real new ground, but it provides a comfortable and undemanding casual read.

Ferguson shines most when she is writing about her mid-century characters. Her post-war British landscape feels surreal, harsh and at times fantastical. It is a time of dying aristocracy, snobbery and early household appliances. Stiff upper lip. Iris, the heavy-handedly named working-class nurse, is intriguing enough to keep one reading.

Her modern characters--our protagonist, Sylvia, is a rigid and competent eye surgeon--feel flatter, going about their daily urban lives and having their Oprah moments. What makes them compelling? Aside from Sylvia's inability to love her infant daughter (well executed), it's hard to say.

A couple of times in the book Ferguson seems close to capturing an emotion in essence, as when Rob (one of our post-war characters) muses about being in love:

"A great many things had stopped worrying Rob. Sometimes, hurrying down a corridor or along a pavement, happiness required him to leap up, arm outstretched, to touch the light-fitting or branch high overhead. He was always hungry. When alone he slept deeply, dreamlessly. He grew an inch."

Overall, though, the writing is efficient, not profound enough to flash your heart alight. There is the expected tragic love and redemption, but the true nature of the characters' entanglement is an odd reveal near the end of the book: a spray of confusing details that feels too specific to be interesting. ( )

This book is much like a flower. As a shoot, it's pleasant enough. As it buds and then begins to bloom, however, it becomes much more complex and beautiful. All of the characters are interesting, and their lives intersect in a multitude of ways that do not become fully clear until the very end, which adds suspense to the literary pleasure.

My one complaint about the book is that it seemed to rush to its conclusions at the end, whereas it grew on you slowly, slowly in the beginning. It seemed to me that the author suddenly felt like she was coming up on her page limit and decided to wrap everything up in a bit of a hurry.

Another enjoyable early reviewer's book for me!! ( )