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EDITOR'S DESK

Amanda comes to stay

by Judi McLeod

June 2, 2003

Not nearly often enough, a book will come along that somehow manages to put a tumultuous life in order. A book that rearranges things in a way that sidelines tumult as long as one is poring through its chapters.

Amanda bright @ home, by Danielle Crittenden, is just that sort of book. No matter what is going on, it catches you up in the first chapter, and carries you through to the end.

A voracious reader when things are going well, my books tend to wait unopened through times of travail. A delicious novel is a must on rare forages to places like Wasaga Beach. During dark nights of the soul, The Great Gatsby is my favourite re-read. Re-reading F. Scott Fitzgerald always makes me think that I might finally get the hang of human nature, which, of course, I never really do.

Acquired only last Sunday, I closed the cover of Amanda bright @ home on Wednesday, having finished the final chapter. Amanda bright @ home had lots of competition: the business of newspapering in a time of SARS, the demands of out-of-the-blue business projects, and turmoil in my personal life. Besides all of this, many books piled up on top of the steamer trunk beside my bed.

Amanda bright @home is that rare kind of book that delivers the wonderful things promised on its cover…"Danielle has written an honest, hilarious, and bittersweet valentine to every mother who’s had to choose between going to work and leaving a career to be with her kids."

"The first novel ever to be serialized by the Wall Street Journal, Amanda bright @ home brilliantly illuminates the dilemmas today’s women face…and the sacrifices they make to follow their hearts."

Its author signed the copy of the book I brought home from Linda Frum’s charming backyard launch for Dani Crittenden. I had only meant to flip through a few pages and lay it aside until later. Having finished the first page, I was enrapt. I continued returning to Amanda at every opportunity.

Danielle (Dani) to me is the author of What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us, a book that resulted in Vanity Fair declaring her "one of the most important new writers and thinkers about women." Her articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post, and she is a frequent commentator on national TV and radio.

Amanda is her first novel. Knowing about Dani’s literary skills firsthand, I knew the book would be well written, but I didn’t know it would completely captivate me.

Main characters, Washington parents Amanda and Bob, and their two children, are vulnerable enough to be believable. There are other indelible characters in Amanda bright @ home that you will recognize from cropping up in your own life.

The author’s descriptive powers are outstanding, and from my tumultuous Toronto world, I was transported to ivy-covered Washington. Amanda’s is a compelling story, one that a reader wants to carry on beyond the end. Yet, with the end, also comes the recognition that most of our lives follow the same thread.

This is my opinion of Amanda bright @ home as a reader, not as the author’s proud friend.

Dani, as any who follow my columns know, long ago shared a desk with me when we were reporters at the Toronto Sun.

The young matron, who I now see only too fleetingly, is mother of plucky Miranda, earnest Nathaniel, and baby Beatrice. Dani is someone who will always loom large on the landscape of my life.

At Linda’s launch party, her children, husband David Frum, parents Yvonne and Peter Worthington, in-laws, and friends surrounded her.

Some of the friends that I encountered at the party, I hadn’t seen in more than a decade. The wonderful Ernest Hillen, for example, who Dani and I used to meet for Friday margaritas in a downtown Mexican restaurant that exists only in memory. Ernest, a former Saturday Night editor, reminds me in looks, gestures, and writing style of the fabulous Dominick Dunne.

There was writer George Jonas, his wife and her Seeing Eye dog, the witty former Idler editor David Warren, and so many others from the past. But no one was more compelling than Dani.

"To Judi, With love and admiration" were words not written just on the flyleaf, but also on my heart.

Delving into this newly released novel, I met the entrancing Amanda. And when I closed the book, Amanda was still very much in the room.


Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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