Landscape of a Marriage

I was surprised to find I really liked this, since it's not one of my usual genres, but then it was more than a historical love story. I chose it because it was about Frederick Law Olmsted, but kept reading for the story about his wife and children.

I stumbled upon Gail Ward Olmsted's books years ago, and ever since they've been a friendly hand to hold in my reading journey. Gail is incredible at writing a heart felt story with characters who feel real. It's a real talent that makes me adore reading anything she puts out. It's hard to find those authors, but when you do... Cherish them. Enjoy your time.

Landscape of a Marriage was a biographical, historical fiction tale all about Gail Ward Olmsted's husband's ancestors. From the minute I met the main characters, I figured Olmsted had to be a family name. If you get the chance to pick up this novel, read the Author's Notes in the back. It's truly incredible how stories and families inspire us. I really enjoyed taking a peek into this show more ancestry, even if some of this story is more fiction than not. Obviously, we wouldn't know 100% what would happen in that relationship. Either way, it was a miraculous and fabulous story.

Now, onto the actual story:

We meet Mary abruptly. She gets an urgent message to come home; a call to action. Her husband John died suddenly at 32, which brings such a sad start to this story. Once Mary gets home, she reacquaints herself with John's brother Fred. As things go, she ends up marrying Fred. It starts out as a marriage of convenience (with him being a bachelor and all, and her having three young children to care for). Eventually, the two begin falling for each other. Like every normal relationship, there are ups and downs. Fred's a busy man, being an architect and all. He made so many famous buildings along the way! How does a family that's growing and dealing with love, loss, pain, injury and illness keep it together? Well, they work hard and try their best.

There's a lot of interesting set-up in this book that foreshadows the future:
1. Everyone looking at Fred on Mary and Fred's wedding day gives you hints towards how their relationship might play out.
2. Canada geese - These are murder geese. If you see them, you know it's bad luck. Well, not really, but I found it funny. Those creatures can be evil and for some reason they are in so many books I am reading lately!
3. Naming a son after a man who had a tragic passing... You know what's going to happen.

There's also just so many fun parts about this novel:
1. The retelling of American history but from the eyes of a woman experiencing it. I really liked how history progressed and how I saw it from the average Joe's point of view.
2. The ups and downs of a long distance marriage where one partner is considerably well known.
3. The strong points of views of many characters conflicting each other, and everyone having to reach some sort of consensus.

A lot of this story holds up today, as Gail discusses in her author's notes. Gender bias, family roles, grief and loss - there's so much going on in this story, and it feels real. I felt for Mary throughout her story. It's difficult balancing a family and learning to grow from past losses. This book struck home in all the right places. Mary felt like a long lost friend who I wanted to give a hug. We've all been there with our difficulties, and I just wanted to help her. Gail did a wonderful job making her feel real.

Overall, this book is a worthy read. Historical, biographical, contemporary fiction with a dash of romance and drama. This book really does it for me. It transports me away, helped teach me a few things, and made me feel so many feelings. Ah, the feels. To many tears, honestly. In the best and worst ways.

Five out of five stars.

Thank you to Gail Ward Olmsted who provided me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review. show less

We may be familiar with Frederick Law Olmsted, but we are unlikely to have heard of his wife, Mary. In this enlightening look into both of their lives, we learn that Mary married her brother-in-law, Fred, after her husband passed away. She no doubt provided inspiration to Fred and supported him in his efforts, but also actually contributed to his designs of innovative parks such as Central Park. Fred was not the easiest person to live with, and wasn’t always faithful. Mary endured Fred’s moods and infidelity, and suffered the loss of a child.The author portrays Mary’s troubles and joys with ease, and shows us the personal side of this journey with a famous man. Weaving the intimate thoughts and feelings of Mary throughout this show more time in Fred’s history was a very interesting approach. I enjoyed reading this book about Mary Perkins Olmsted and hope to read more from this author. show less

If you are like me, LANDSCAPE OF A MARRIAGE: CENTRAL PARK WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING will no doubt provide you with interesting information about the lives of brilliant landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) and his wife of 40 years, Mary Cleveland Perkins (1830-1921). Just don’t expect a page-turner.

On the plus side, the Olmsteds marriage turned out better than anyone might have expected. Mary was first married to Dr. John Hull Olmsted II (1825-57), Frederick’s younger brother. After John died of tuberculosis at the age of 32, leaving Mary a widow with three young children, Frederick offered marriage to Mary, chiefly out of obligation, in order to provide for her and her family. Their union however quickly became a love show more match and the second Olmsted pairing resulted in four more children. Though they also faced quite a bit of tragedy together.

The novel chronicles the ups and downs of Fred’s career. What a varied and interesting professional life! There are connections to the corruption of New York's Mayor William "Boss" Tweed and his Tammany Hall Hall political machine, Olmsted's business partnership with Calvert Vaux, a brief foray into managing gold mines at Rancho Las Mariposas in California, work as Executive Secretary of the U.S. Sanitary Commission during the American Civil War, as well as Olmsted's steadily growing success as the visionary behind the designs of New York’s Central Park, Boston’s Emerald Necklace, the Vanderbilt estate Biltmore, Stanford University, and many other public and private spaces. As the years pass, Mary becomes more involved in the business side of Fred’s life, recognized as a valuable partner in both his business AND private life.

On the minus side, the actual writing of LANDSCAPE OF A MARRIAGE is adequate but nothing more. Mary tells their story but her first person narrative is full of cliches, trite phrases, and few surprises. The novel’s pace is uneven. So much so that, as I was listening to the audiobook version, I wound up increasing the speed of the playback — wanting to finish the story but losing patience with the style.

If you have an interest in learning more about this 19th century power couple, you will likely enjoy this book. If not, you might want to find something else. show less

This really didn't work for me. It might have been better in epistolary form - as it is, it's too episodic. In each chapter, they move, or someone dies, or someone is born, or she gets depressed, or she decides he's having an affair, or he's overworking and she tries (and usually succeeds, short-term) to get him to slow down, or... or nothing happens at all, there's just a rather pointless recounting of a day in her life. And each of these things happens repeatedly, and is written in very similar terms. Over and over and... There are happy scenes - the end of most of the chapters have them delighted to be married to each other (especially in bed). But most of the chapters start poorly whether or not they end well - to the point where I show more was wondering if Mary was bipolar to some extent, up and down. They also, repeatedly, say and think that a) they understand each other perfectly and b) the other can constantly surprise them...and there's no apparent recognition of the contradiction. If you wanted to know more about Frederick Law Olmsted, this would probably be a disappointment - we get only a sketchy skeleton of what he does, usually in a discussion either about some wonderful commission he gets, or how annoying the one he's working on is, or how much he's overworking on this and that and the other. If the characters had been solider, it might have been an interesting take on history - events from before the Civil War to after the Chicago World Fair. But again, the events are seen through Mary's focus on her household and family, and there's no detail to most of them. Researching it was probably fun, but reading it wasn't, for me. In the foreword, we're told that there's almost no information about Mary Olmsted, so the author felt free to make up a great deal about her (she's the only viewpoint character, so _everything_ is "as she saw it" - which is all author fiat). Wish that magazine article had been real, that would have been interesting. In the afterword, the author explains how she modified things to make them more interesting - gave Mary a friend (in the story, her only friend) but changed the name of the actual historical character she slotted into that place, for instance (because her name was also Mary). And made up that Mary's daughter was active in the suffragette movement (and again, no details about that...a bit of name dropping is all). So I can't much trust the "facts" of the story, I'm not interested in the character, and...yeah. Didn't work for me. show less

Early Reviewers. Interesting look at Frederick Law Olmsted and his family. I really knew nothing about this family or this time period. The book was well plotted and the characters were described well. I didn’t like the insinuation that he was having an affair without any proof. Why bring it up? Overall, not a bad read.

This story was a bit of a disappointment. It is a fictionalized memoir of Mary Perkins Olmsted, wife of renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Other than the basic dates and facts if her life, very little is known about her, so the author had a fairly free hand in attributing characteristics and emotions to the characters, particularly Fred and Mary. It is known to have been a marriage of convenience, between FLO and his brother's widow, embarked on as a means of providing for the widow and children. The author had it growing into a love match. As a literary choice, that's acceptable, but the style is very unsophisticated, and the gushing over "my wonderful genius husband" is a bit overdone. Still, it was pleasant enough show more and easy to read, just not tremendously memorable.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. show less