After one of the members dies, the writing group called the Leopardi Circle, is introduced a new writer, Nancy Markopolis, who is writing a novel about her father, a physician who left medicine to become a teacher.

The group consists of a few quirky male and female characters, each with some kind of a publication to his name. Among them is Gillian Coit, a highly accomplished poet who has little feeling for the group members and mankind in general. When Nancy doesn't accept her input, the self-centered Gillian takes matters into her own hands. At the end, the writers' rivalry and backstabbing ends in retribution and tragedy.

The main idea in the novel is the ethics of writing and plagiarism. The relationships among the characters are given some slack, but the tensions and factions among them are downplayed. Still a reader can appreciate the internal and external traits of the book's many characters.

the dramatic ending.

The slow start and the long introductions of characters even the lesser ones in the beginning. Although this gave a good background to the real story, it confused me. I didn't know where the story was going and who the main characters were.

Corinne Demas, according to her website:
"is the author of two collections of short stories, three novels, a memoir, a collection of poetry, a play, and numerous books for children. She is Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College and a fiction editor of the Massachusetts Review.

She grew up in New York City, in Stuyvesant Town, the subject of her memoir, Eleven Stories High, Growing Up in Stuyvesant Town, 1948-1968. She attended Hunter College High School, graduated from Tufts University, and completed a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She lived in Pittsburgh for a decade, teaching at the University of Pittsburgh and at Chatham College. In 1978 she moved to New England and began teaching at Mount Holyoke College. Her awards include two National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships and an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship."

of its ending: the drama of it and the quick and unexpected twists the plot takes at the end.

*The ending of this book should act as a good example to those of us in WdC who experience difficulties with our endings.

This book sort of dabbles in the psychological terrain but doesn't quite make it. Also, the pacing is too slow in the beginning, and in comparison, too fast at the end.
Until about midpoint, I had difficulty recognizing that Nancy was the protagonist and Gillian the antagonist. Still the novel has many strengths as its subject is writing and a story is there to enjoy.

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Created Sep 30, 2010 at 9:13am • Submit your own review...