Blessings

Anna Quindlen

It took me a good five or six chapters to warm up to this book. Part of that had to do with some preconceived, unsubstantiated notion that Quindlen is not an author I would like. It was also the way the book had been described in reviews - an old-fashioned story with charm - that turned me off, as that isn't exactly my kind of story. As it turns out, the character of Lydia Blessings saves this novel; she reminded me quite a alot of Margaret Laurence's Hagar (The Stone Angel) and of Margaret Atwood's Iris (The Blind Assassin). The more I got to know her, the more about her I wanted to know.

Blessings is the name of the estate of Lydia Blessings, an ex-New York socialite who, in her early twenties, became pregnant by a married man and was sent by her mother to live at the family's country estate so as to not embarrass the family. It was supposed to be a temporary arrangement, but Lydia never left the place, and is now in her 80's. The book opens as a young teenage couple, in the dark of night, leave their newborn baby in a box on the stoop outside the back of the estate (if you think that's a bit obvious, just wait, it gets better). Skip, the estate's new caretaker, lives in the apartment above the garage and finds the child in the morning. Skip is an ex-convict - actually, an unwilling participant in a robbery years ago where his friends let him take the fall - trying to scrape out a living, and when he finds the baby he (unbelievably) becomes paternal, decides to keep her, and names her Faith (okay, see, this kind of stuff - at the Blessings estate, a baby, who will obviously turn out to be a blessing for this place and the people in it, is named Faith - just makes me want to puke. But eventually, I got over it.) Skip tries to keep the baby a secret, but before long Lydia discovers her. She lets Skip keep Faith, and in fact, becomes enamored with the child herself.

The story of Skip and Faith becomes much more complicated, and even more ludicrous, as the novel continues, but that's not where the interest in this book lies. This out-and-out obvious set-up is the vehicle Quindlen uses to tell Lydia's story - a rigid, isolated old woman, basically exiled on this estate, who is set in her ways, has plenty of regrets, and is closed off to showing love and affection, even for her own daughter. Faith begins to bring new life to this household and begins to really affect Lydia, causing her to reflect on her life. As she relives the many layers of that life, and reveals the many secrets it holds, I started not being able to put the book down. You sense that Quindlen is leading you (and Lydia) somewhere important, some revelation that will affect and change everything. It's Lydia's story that Quindlen unfolds with exceptional skill, and it makes all the "blessings" and "faith" nonsense worth putting up with. It becomes easier and easier to forgive Quindlen some of the surface problems of the book.

Overall, I ended up enjoying the book quite a bit; it's an uneven story, but the parts Quindlen does well makes the book worth reading.