Imagine if you would have a conversation with someone about
his or her life in which the conversation jumps from
college experience, preschool experience and then back to
being a teenager.Elizabeth Crane takes the reader on
such a journey in her most recent novel.
Charlotte Anne Byers is a strong and often opinionated
young lady who's experienced a lot in her life from the
divorce of her parents, the death of her mother and the
search for the perfect mate. Through vignettes, the reader
learns that Charlotte Anne from a young age has had
definite ideas for her life, and while she yearns to find
connections with people, she's an individual with a strong
self-image.
When Charlotte Anne is very young, her parents divorce and
she begins to live two lives, one in New York with her
mother, a world-class opera singer, and one of occasional
visits with her father, a slightly absentminded professor
living in Iowa City, Iowa. While in New York, Charlotte
Anne struggles to fit in with her peers and eventually
latches on to a kindred spirit in Jenna. Throughout the
subsequent chapters, Jenna is a pivotal confidant in
Charlotte Anne's life and is more constant than any of her
family members.
As the novel meanders through Charlotte Anne's life, the
reader is introduced to several styles of writing ranging
from the whimsical to stream of consciousness. Readers
charmed by Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones may find the
reading of this series of short stories enchanting. Often
as I was reading the novel, I felt I was actually having a
conversation with Charlotte Anne rather than reading about
her. Throughout the novel, her conversations jumped
subjects and digressed into diatribes about her feelings on
many topics. The opening chapter is a seven-page personal
ad searching for the perfect mate, which is funny in parts,
but often made me want to take a breath for her. On the
whole, ALL THIS HEAVENLY GLORY was a fun read once I was
able to get into the rhythm of the novel and realized the
whimsy of the writing was half the fun.
From the time she moved to New York as a young girl,
desperate to tame her ridiculed southern accent, Charlotte
Anne Byers has struggled to fit in-even while her strong
will makes her clash with everything and everyone around
her. With her mother pursuing a career as an opera singer
and her father returning to Iowa, Charlotte is caught in the
divide between her parents' dreams. She finds a touchstone
in Jenna, a friend who will be by Charlotte's side through
the death of her mother, several failed career moves, even
more failed romances, a detour into alcoholism, and finding
true love. In her lifetime Charlotte finds hope and
disappointment mingled with faith and desperation, laughter
on the heels of weeping, and success assuaging the pain of
the most embarrassing failures-her path both all her own and
instantly familiar.
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