Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings

It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with:

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Today I'm featuring a recent read, Heather, the Totality by Matthew Weiner.  The excerpts shared are from a library copy.

 

  

Beginning:  

Mark and Karen Breakstone got married a little late in life.  Karen was nearly 40 and had given up on finding someone as good as her father and had begun to become bitter about the seven-year relationship she'd had after college with her former Art teacher.  In fact, when she was set up with Mark, she nearly turned the date down because Mark's only prominent quality was his potential to be rich.

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Page 56: "Mark and Heather's sleepy sipping and nibbling was routine and wordless but they were at peace together and this seemed to bring out an energetic pettiness in Karen."

 

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My thoughts: This short novel presents an interesting window into modern urban life and relationships, both intimate and random.  Weiner offers insight into how far some individuals will go to protect their interests and fulfill their desires.

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From Goodreads:  The Breakstone family arrange themselves around their daughter Heather, and the world seems to follow: beautiful, compassionate, entrancing, she is the greatest blessing in their lives of Manhattan luxury. But as Heather grows-and her empathy sharpens to a point, and her radiance attracts more and more dark interest-their perfect existence starts to fracture. Meanwhile a very different life, one raised in poverty and in violence, is beginning its own malign orbit around Heather.

Matthew Weiner-the creator of Mad Men-has crafted an extraordinary first novel of incredible pull and menace. Heather, The Totality demonstrates perfectly his forensic eye for the human qualities that hold modern society together, and pull it apart.