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| Plot Summary of The Year of the Lucy |
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"Mirelle Martin was different from all of the other housewives she met. Her mother was a famous soprano who married a handsome English lord, but he was not Mirelle's father. No, Mirelle's father was the Hungarian portrait painter, Lajos Neagu, who had an affair with Mirelle's mother while he painted her. In order to save her marriage, Mirelle's mother was forced to send her to live with a friend in the US where Mirelle grew up.
Mirelle knew that her background was unusual, but she didn't really think it was anything to be ashamed of, until she met Steve. Steve was wonderful when they first met, so handsome and playful with her, unlike all of the other men that she knew. After they married, Mirelle tried her hardest to become the perfect wife and mother for their three children. Her past did not come up often and it didn't seem to matter to anyone - until her father died and left her some art in his will, acknowledging her as his daughter. Steve's parents were humiliated and made Mirelle feel cheap and unwanted. In order to spare them any embarrassment, Mirelle never talked about her past and tried to give up her sculpting to see to Steve's needs.
Steve was a salesman and traveled a lot in his work for the company. Mirelle tried to make new friends when they moved and that is how she first met Lucy, who tried to make Mirelle stand up for herself and her art and to be someone instead of just Steve's wife. But when Steve's job forced them to move again, Mirelle couldn't stand the heartbreak of leaving more friends behind so she isolated herself. When she heard of Lucy's death, it sparked a change within her and Mirelle started sculpting again, started living again. Then she met James Howell, the handsome pianist who lived nearby and an attraction developed between them. Mirelle was lonely and Steve was so judgmental these days, she needed someone who understood the urge to create and to display talent in an artistic way. But was Mirelle ready to make such big changes in her life? As Mirelle lives through the year after her friend's death, she risks everything to make her life more meaningful...
As I expected from McCaffrey, this book is well written and the characters are quite engaging, especially Mirelle, who really blossomed in this book. I wish that we could have seem more of Lucy and I felt that Steve was a kind of shadow figure, but, for the most part, the secondary characters were fun to get to know. I didn't particularly enjoy the relationship between Mirelle & James, who became more than just friends at one point in the book. Mirelle is married and knows that Steve has cheated on her while he is away on sales trips, but she justifies her relationship with James by saying that she doesn't care about sex, it is just an act and means nothing. This really turned me off and I felt that the romance between Steve & Mirelle and Mirelle & James was shallow and neither man meant that much to Mirelle. I enjoyed watching Mirelle grow and her sculpting develop, but this book is basically a story about two love triangles, Mirelle's mother, her husband & the handsome painter and Mirelle, her husband & her handsome neighbor with history being repeated. I can understand why the book went out of print because it is a bit dated in its context and it is hard to justify a husband and wife both cheating on each other and thinking that it didn't matter."
Debbie, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of The Year of the Lucy |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book?
- thoughtful
Time/era of story
- 1960's-1970's
Romance/Romance Problems
Yes
Kind of romance:
- playing footsy while inconveniently married
- rekindling lost love/marriage
Family, struggle with
Yes
Struggle with:
- Husband
Is this an adult or child's book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Loss of...
- good friends
Main Character
Gender
- Female
Profession/status:
- artist
Age:
- 20's-30's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Eastern European
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- average physique
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Male
Age:
- 40's-50's
Profession/status:
- business executive
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- an above average amount
How sensitive is this character?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 3 (some)
United States
Yes
Small town?
Yes
Small town people:
- nice, like Andy/Opie/Aunt Bee
Style
Person
- mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
Sex in book?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- vague references
- descript of kissing
Amount of dialog
- roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
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Anne McCaffrey Resident Scholar Profiles
TOP SCHOLAR:
 Debbie
SCHOLARS:
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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