In this evocative chronicle of one woman's life in the 1990s, Maynard creates an extraordinary character out of the altogether familiar attributes of Claire, divorced mother of two children and epitome of the supermom. Approaching her fortieth birthday, Claire spends her days juggling the demands of a career with the vicissitudes of parenthood and the exciting if confusing role of lover. Romantic and sexual needs that were never fulfilled by her former husband are now satiated, first by Mickey, who turns out to be skittish about Claire's children, and then by a truly devoted lover, Tim, himself the father of an impossibly difficult young daughter. Admirers will savor Maynard's skillful renderings in this knowing, finely realized novel of the emotional peaks and the excruciating mishaps that come with the territory of love affairs and of parenting. Alice Joyce
Review
"This is a splendid, heartfelt novel that knows far too much about what is going wrong between men and women in these strange and dizzying times. Joyce Maynard's subject is love, but her gift is presenting it in all its many masks and stoney guises as men and women blunder toward each other with all the tenderness of their wounds open for all to see. Her book feels real enough to live in."
-- Pat Conroy
"Where Love Goes is a novel that has the intimacy and directness of a voice whispering in your ear. It is about love, loss, memory, music, men, women, children -- and how they drag us kicking and screaming into adulthood. A lovely book. And true."
-- Erica Jong
"The subject here is love, between parents and kids, husbands and wives, and lovers -- how we beat each other up with it, misplace and misunderstand it, and fall on our swords over it, then find the touchingly human bravery to get up the next day and start pursuing it again. Joyce Maynard has written a pitch-perfect, wise, heartbreaking, and ultimately triumphant book."
-- Charles Gaines
"Funny, tender, and true...Maynard's best yet."
-- Kirkus Reviews
From the Hardcover edition.
From the Inside Flap
Claire is "pushing forty with a short stick." She's divorced and raising two teenagers in a small town where just about everybody else is married. Claire longs for companionship, romance, and passion. She's tried blind dates, answered the personals. She's still looking.
When Claire meets Tim -- also divorced, struggling to raise his own daughter, Ursula -- she believes she's found the perfect partner and lover. But as Tim and Claire work toward joining their families and building an intimate life together, their families clash in a never-ending battle for attention and affection: Ursula resents Claire, and Claire's children hate Ursula. When Ursula wreaks a unique and deadly vengeance on everyone, her mother suddenly shows up after a two-year absence and both families spin out of control. "I used to think you and I could make a family together," Claire tells Tim. "Now I feel I'm losing the family I had."
Where Love Goes is a poignant and stirring story about a woman's brave attempt to remake her life. Maynard writes realistically -- at times comically, at times lyrically -- about the issues women deal with today: the conflict between sexuality and domesticity, how to be a good enough mother and still survive professionally, and how to find passion and enduring love along the way. Her new novel will ring with truth and hopefulness for anyone who has ever loved, lost, and decided to try again.
From the Back Cover
hor of To Die For comes this poignant, stirring, and occasionally hilarious story of a woman's attempt to remake her life after a searing divorce. Maynard's novel captures love as one approaches middle age in contemporary America.
About the Author
Joyce Maynard was a freshman at Yale when she published her memorable New York Times cover story, "An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back at Life." Her most recent novel, To Die For, is now a movie produced by Columbia Pictures. She lives in Keene, New Hamphire, with her three children.
