Elisabeth Egan

Just because numerous articles and books have been published debunking the myth of having it all, doesn't mean that people don't still try, sometimes out of necessity. But there is no doubt that this quest is stressful and hard, hectic and all-consuming. Elisabeth Egan's debut novel, A Window Opens, is the tale of one woman's need to try and make it work for herself and her family.

Alice Pearse is the happily married mother of three. She has a relaxed part time job reviewing books for a show more women's magazine that allows her to still be a part of the PTA crowd. Her beloved parents live quite close and she has a wonderful babysitter to help her on days she's working. Her husband Nicholas is a lawyer at a high powered firm and they all seem relatively content with their lives. That is, until Nicholas finds out he won't be making partner at his firm and decides that he's going to start his own small legal practice. Worried about what this means for them financially, Alice starts to look for full time work to keep the family afloat while Nicholas slowly builds a client base. She lucks into a job that seems like a book lover's dream: content manager at startup Scroll, a company intent on creating an entirely new bookstore experience. Alice will be on the ground floor of something truly innovative and she is one of the people who gets the opportunity to find and curate the collection of books that will be available in these amazing sounding literary lounges. The only downside seems to be the very real threat these e-book and first edition p-books (that's Scroll speak for paper book) reading rooms pose to traditional brick and mortar independent bookstores. But Alice can look past that; she has to, doesn't she?

Setting aside the troubling fact that the company's parent is a monolithic retail mall developer, Alice is initially excited about the vision of Scroll and its focus on the whole reading experience. Even if she is a good decade older than most of the employees and she smirks at the ridiculous jargon they all use, she is fully invested in her job. As a matter of fact, she's so invested that she feels she's missing out on the home front. And she is. She's so attached to her phone, tied to her emails, and consumed by her job that she barely sees what's going on with her kids, she misses a doctor's appointment where her father discovers that his throat cancer has reoccurred, and she misses the fact that her husband is suddenly drinking too much as a way to alleviate his own stress. Meanwhile, Scroll is not designed to accommodate a work life balance and its clearly stated intentions are changing from what they once were, morphing at the speed of light to something that isn't quite as aligned with Alice's beliefs as it once was. Alice is frazzled and unhappy, stuck in a juggling act that just serves to make her feel terrible. Things must come to a head and Alice has to decide just how far she can stray from her ideals before she no longer likes herself and how much her family's and her own happiness means to her.

Alice is an appealing character who just wants to do the best thing for her family and to be happy. She is pulled in a million different directions and her thoughts and feelings on the push and pull are incredibly realistic. Egan's depiction of the book world, the flux that it is in, and the threat of huge, impersonal corporations which hire enthusiastic people, only to dismiss their very valid suggestions and concerns about the industry, is spot on. There is much that is heartbreaking here, a struggle to adjust, terminal cancer, and the almost too late realization of what is most important in our lives. Egan doesn't condemn anyone for their choices but she clearly explains the compromises that we all have to make and the cost those compromises can bring. Nicholas is a frustrating character, unable to slide into the role in which Alice served him for years and resentful that she needed him to do that. I wanted to like him for the loving things he did but instead he made me angry for his lack of realization about how his decision to start his own firm and to burn his bridges at the old place would seismically shift his family and all the roles, his included, in it. The narrative pacing is a little uneven in places, with definite slowdowns in the tale. There are brief light moments but this is not really a funny book; it is far more serious than it initially seems. It's an examination of the lives we build, the trade-offs we make, and finding the balance we can live with, even if that balance will never be 50/50. It's sad but ultimately hopeful and incredibly relate-able. show less

Smart, funny, and heartfelt, I loved Elisabeth Eagan’s new book “A Window Opens.” While the overall plot has been done before – Mom goes back to work full-time (to a job that wasn’t quite what she thought it would be) and struggles to manage it all – Eagan scores originality points for incorporating main character Claire’s struggles with aging/ill parents; creating real, likeable characters; and writing a book for book lovers.

Some of my favorite parts of the book were all of show more the literary references ranging from the classics to contemporary novels. Some are included to move the story along, others are included strictly for the enjoyment of the audience – sort of like all those cameos in Muppet movies (For example, a bookstore owner is overheard telling a customer, “No, Jonathan *Tropper*. Trust me, he’s a lot more fun than Jonathan Franzen.)

Claire also reminisces about dressing up as The Book Lady as a little girl, filling her rolling suitcase with books and walking around the house trying to sell books to her family members. It brought back memories of my own, when as a child I organized all the books on our shelves and created my own version of the Dewey Decimal system. My siblings weren’t allowed to take a book from the shelf without first “checking it out” with me!

4.5 enthusiastic stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. show less

Like many other readers, I find the book hard to rate. It’s very readable, and I blasted through it at top speed. And I basically enjoyed the read, but at times the mountains of minutiae were overwhelming, so much of it seemingly inconsequential, though it all adds up, I guess. In fact, I began to feel very stressed out, myself, by main character Alice Pearse’s life. And I do not have much stress in my own life. So I guess it was effective. At the same time, it seemed to me that lot of show more that detail was superficial and a way of letting the character and readers dodge more serious issues. The narrative’s a bit too breezy and predictable. There wasn’t as much depth to Alice as I’d hoped.

I generally refrain from using the phrase “women’s fiction” — and yes, I’m aware of the fact that a novel with a male protagonist is not called “men’s fiction” — but I would have to characterize the book that way. It is wholly about women’s concerns from a woman’s point of view. And that’s okay. But I can’t imagine my husband, say, reading this one.

There were some parts of the narrative that I loved — in particular, the passages in which Alice observed or thought about or interacted with her children. That all seemed so real and so tender. It had the ring of authenticity. Having read an interview with the author, I’m guessing that much of this is pretty close to Egan’s real life: children, jobs, father’s death. Now that has me wondering. . . . .

Is the workplace Scroll supposed to be Amazon? Alice’s work situation was astoundingly horrid. Sometimes the narrative seemed like a parody of the modern corporate workplace with all its absurdities and mind-numbing jargon. I have to admit that was pretty funny. And yet. . . . It’s hard to relate to this well-off woman with a smart, good-looking husband (well okay, not perfect), three perfect children (and a nanny!) who lands a high-paying job (is she really qualified?) with a forward-looking, ambitious company — but who is, at heart, of course, a mom!

I’ve seen the book described as “witty and charming.” And it is. A little on the light side. That can be a pro or con, depending on what you’re in the mood for. show less

I’m more than a few years past the stressful – but joyful – years of raising small children. This book is about the stresses of marriage and parenting while holding down a soul-sucking full-time job, and dealing with a parent’s serious illness. You would think I’m the wrong reader for this book but I loved it! None of the issues presented are new, and have been written about many times. But Ms Egan puts a fresh new spin on it and I loved her voice. Well done!

When Alice’s lawyer show more husband doesn’t make partner he throws his laptop across the room and quits his job. The plan is to open his own law practice, but until it's up and running Alice must leave her part-time job reviewing books for a magazine and find full-time work. She finds her “dream job” at Scroll, a start-up that plans to open a new type of bookstore with e-book reading lounges for the well-heeled customer. But the dream job turns into a nightmare when the focus changes to something she’s avidly against. Her hipster co-workers and boss, plus the corporate culture and verbiage added humor. Putting the communication in e-mails was entertaining. (Although not if you're living it).

Soon Alice is juggling work, a long commute, 3 young kids who need her, a husband who is developing problems and doesn’t seem to be working all that hard, and a sick parent who needs her. She’s stretched thin and not performing well in any of her roles. Add in her best friend who owns a small indie bookstore and thinks Alice has sold her soul to the devil.

This is an easy, humorous read, but with issues that have depth and poignancy. That’s a hard line to walk and I think Ms Egan does it very well. I thought she handled the chapters on hospice and the end-of-life amazingly well, without going into too much detail. I’ve recently been there and her depiction of the death-watch of a parent were so accurate I suspect the author has walked that walk.

One of my favorite parts of the novel were the literary references and quotes. How could I not like a book that celebrates books and reading?

This was an excellent debut and I look forward to seeing what the author writes next! show less