Sunday book pick: Husband vs best friend vs child vs career in ‘Goodbye Without Leaving’

“You put on some silly dress and you get married. Then you put on an even sillier dress when you’re pregnant. You find yourself wearing the same thing day after day and you’re a mother.”

At the heart of Laurie Colwin’s 1990 novel Goodbye Without Leaving are the questions that trouble every modern woman: Who’s my soulmate – my best friend or husband? Is a child worth trading a career for? What should I do about religion and spirituality as a feminist? And, will my mother ever let me be?

Being a Shakette

Graduate student Geraldine Coleshares has no interest in pursuing a doctorate degree and neither is she interested in following in her mother’s footsteps and becoming a painter. If anything, she doesn’t have a single creative bone in her body. The only art form that does interest her is music. Rock n’ roll, in particular. Geraldine’s mother detests her bohemian interests and would rather she found a more suitable niche. To fulfil the “burning desire of her heart” (and spite her mother), Geraldine runs away to become a “Shakette” with an all-Back rock n’ roll group, Vernon and Ruby Shakely and the Shakettes. Unlike the others in the group, for whom travelling and performing and camping in...

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