Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon

This book focuses on the friendship between two families whose lives are on the brink of change: the husbands run a record business about to go under to the threat of a corporate store planned just a few blocks away, the wives' midwifery practice is under siege when a home birth goes wrong, a baby is about to be born (just as the father's illegitimate son reappears), and a teenage boy falls in love for the first time. Despite all these events, the book is about its vividly-drawn characters. I found this book easy and enjoyable to read (as opposed to, say, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, which took me years).

The Group by Mary McCarthy

While this book follows the coming of age of a group of Vassar graduates mostly in New York City during the end of the Great Depression and into World War Two, it's really in some ways the story of one woman's unfortunate marriage and how that match affects the lives of her college friends. I read Joanna Smith Rakoff's A Fortunate Age a while ago for the Barnes and Noble First Look program, and at the time heard that she had written an homage to The Group--now I can see she straight up lifted the plot and set it forward sixty years. I enjoyed this book, although I think it would have been more striking if I were a contemporary and if I hadn't read the knock-off version first. Despite the large number of characters, I think McCarthy does a nice job of managing them so that the various scenes illuminate and fill in the inevitable gaps in the history far better than a more full chronology might.

The Writing Circle by Corinne Demas

Because the First Look group has not yet finished discussing this book yet, I'm putting my review under a cut.