i first read the title story in this collection during high school. it was included in some kind of short fiction anthology used for an english class, but this particular selection was not assigned by our teacher. regardless, and intrigued by the title, i delved in one night. i have never made a better literary decision. the author's phrasing is sparse and careful, and it stays with you. i could not shake my mental images of the story after walking away from the book, and certain elements resonated even though i had not yet gained enough life experience to fully understand them. such is the power of susan minot's pen.

i purchased the entire collection at city lights bookstore in san francisco some months later, and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the selections. "lust" is definitely the cornerstone, written in a more illustrative and almost instructive manner than the other pieces, but there is grace and gravity to each tale. "sparks" and "blow" are continual favorites, not only of mine, but of all my friends who have read the book. many times, i have reread a story and gained an entirely different perspective on its meaning. there is enough space left in the writing to allow the reader to superimpose him/herself in the situation (often featuring much less action than dialogue), and of course that reader's perspective will change over time. the beauty of "lust & other stories" is that it travels well. the stories stay with you. it is a unique piece, perhaps impossible to top, and the author seems to understand this, having returned to writing novels since the release of this collection.

i also find the cover art on my copy to be very unique and interesting. it features a slightly dated, 80s style photograph of a woman standing with her back to the viewer, arms crossed, looking down and slightly away. in other words: rough road ahead.

there simply are not enough words to express the indelible imprint that ms. minot's work has left on my psyche. short stories are like tattoos. and susan minot's work is subtle, intense, artful ink.

wonderful book...edgy, tense stories that explore lives where people are not necessarily comfortable in their own skins. of all the short stories in this book, the title story "lust" has stuck with me the most. the perfect book for delving into on a gloomy day...

When I usually purchase collections of short stories, its with the intention that the book will be a series of easy reading to spread out over a long period of time. However, the first time I opened Lust, I was hooked. The first story was so real, I felt like I was telling it myself of listening to a good friend. It articulates the young 20's culture of today perfectly--why we use sex, drugs, alcohol, friends, family in the way that only this generation does. I've loaned this book to every one of my friends, and strongly encourage every young woman to read it and enjoy.

"Folly" by Susan Minot is a wonderfully written tale of a woman's choice in a time when a woman's marriage is everything. This tale of heartbreak and intrigue is fabulous. I was fascinated by this decision a wonderfully charismatic woman must make. It has a tremendous amount of charm and heart. It's very well written with a lot of emotion and power. There are moments of "The Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton (which is a classic and can't be surpassed) but, this novel certainly has a lot going for it. I was very happy with my read. I recommend it.

Is it possible to write a tragicomedy of manners without descending into the literary equivalent of Merchant and Ivory territory? Susan Minot's Folly makes a courageous try, aided by a sparse, unemphatic prose style. Ms. Minot's prose style underscores the sharp contrast between the spare passages and her rare flights into extended fantasy or metaphor.

The plot commences in 1917, leading us through a few decades in the life of a Boston well-to-do woman. The "real story", as so often is the case, is the effect of the social milieu upon all its denizens. Although in "social content" Folly brings to mind the novels of Edith Wharton, it must be said that Ms. Minot is unwilling to draw the simple solutions to the social issues she raises that Ms. Wharton might have painted two generations ago. No swift damnations come to those who people this novel merely as a result of their station, nor is easy salvation to be found in flight to a more "free" way of life. Instead, the story is laced with a pleasing ambiguity--perhaps an escape is possible, but the exits are not clearly marked.

"Literary fiction", that sad refugee of obscure collegiate publications, has evolved into a stylized genre no more aesthetically pleasing (and a good bit less entertaining) than, say, science fiction or a well-crafted mystery. Ms. Minot can justly be accused of writing a version of the "MFA litmag" novel, yet she shows the form is not without its virtues. The near-gamesmanship with which she crafts each sentence to achieve studied, quiet precision in her style and ideas makes this story eminently readable and in its own way quite evocative. One might not wish for the slow, gentle satire and complex despair of Folly in every novel one reads, but Folly is certainly worth the effort. Ms. Minot's work, though bearing the stigmata of "literary fiction", suggests that practitioners of this dour form can resurrect interest by placing precise execution of a worthwhile plot first, and saving the "cute" turns of phrase and wails of despair for the literary seminars. Although not everyone will like Folly, it is very satisfying for those who wish a "good read" with a modern sensibility.

Susan Minot's prose is so lyrical, so musical and rapturous, it's a wonder one can pay attention to the story.
Folly, however, IS a story, one that harkens back to memories of The Awakening, Yellow Wallpaper, and other stories of women trapped in imperfect, unfulfilling marriages during an era when even to admit such a thought could lead to one's downfall. When forced to make a choice, Lillian's world opens to self-discovery. Folly is an elegant examination of the inner workings of the heart of a woman.

I have several reactions to this book. The first is that the prose is beautifully evocative and Susan Minot has constructed a beautiful book. I also had the feeling, voiced by several other reviewers at least, that thee is a odd sort of flatness to the story and to the life of Ann Lord, who appears on the surface to have had so much. I think, however, that this may be intentional. As she approaches death, the layers are stripped away, and all of the possessions and relationships that she has had are stripped away. Who can say what would be left as the center point of consciousness for any of us at that point?

For Ann Lord, the weekend of her best friend's wedding, all those years ago, and her weekend affair with Harris Arden become the focal point. As I read the flashbacks to that weekend, I had a sense both of deep sadness and simultaneously a great excitement and sense of possibility. Both existed in that time, and both are carried forward in memory. I think the sense of being so alive and having the heights and depths of love and emotion and death all in that short compressed time is part of why all that returns to Ann Lord as she waits to die.

Many reviewers have been extremely critical of Harris Arden and questioned why such a cad has the significance that he does for Ann and how that relationship may actually diminish her in some way. He is certainly not a sympathetic character, either in his interactions with Ann or in his treatment of his fiancee. I also can only guess whether that weekend was an anomaly for him or whther such relationships were common for him. If it was as distinct and seperate a time for him, a moment out of the normal round of his life, I can have some empathy for him. I am unsure of that.

Ann Lord, a woman in her mid-sixties, lays dying of cancer in her home while her children from her three marriages and friends gather to wish her farewell. Susan Minot takes us into Ann's dying thoughts, her remembrances in a beautiful and evocative novel. Ann has married three times, had several children, had one die. She has lived what others would consider a privileged life, yet these dying thoughts reveal otherwise. Many many years before, prior to her marriages, she had a brief encounter with a man who she believes was her one true love. The memories of her life fade and blend in her mind, yet the weekend she was with Harris Arden remains clear in every detail. Ann does not come across as a warm and loving parent, or even a very good friend. She does come across as a human, a human with emotions that were stunted when the reality of her love for Harris and what will happen becomes clear to her. Evening is a beautifully written novel, full of evocative prose. I thoroughly enjoyed it. A word of caution, however. The Evening narrative jumps around in time without any concrete guidance. If novels like that bother you, think twice before picking this one up. Otherwise, enjoy the read. It's marvelous. Susan Minot is very talented and Evening is a beautiful novel.

Susan Minot's Evening is a wonderful and complex work of fiction. Minot contructs an internal dialogue in the mind of her protagonist, Ann Lord, during the last days of her life. An ephemeral blend of memory, dream, and recontruction, Lord's reflection of her own life consumes the reader in hypnotic waves. Minot expertly crafts vignettes that crackle and ignite as the reader pieces them together. Adrift within the semi-consciousness of Ann Lord, the reader wades through 40 years of memory, including three marriages and a bittersweet love affair during a weekend wedding in Maine.

This is not an easy book. The reading is laborious, but once the reader is absorbed, he or she will be infected and delighted by Minot's style. To achieve the hazy indistinction between past and present, Minot omits punctuation, most notably quotation marks which allows the reader to slip in and out of Lord's memory without a filter. Lord's recollection of the wedding weekend is disrupted by occurrences in the present and the infusion of other memories. Thus, the reader learns about Lord's life bit by bit, fading in and out of the ebb and flow of dreamlike sequences and flashes of memory.

Overall, Minot's writing is fluid and elegant- her scenes rich with emotion. Minot is quite successful in creating an intimate narrative of the last days of a woman's life without falling into melodrama.

Monkeys, by Susan Minot, is a colourful novel about life in a large family. It is about seven children, called 'monkeys' by their mother. The book follows the seven Vincent children as they grow up, and learn to live on their own.
Rosie Vincent, the Vincent's mother, was the character who seemed the most real. She brought their household together, tried to hide their father's alcoholism, cooked and cleaned, and did most of the work in the family. While Rosie may seem well-developed, the other characters were not. Because the novel was so short and there were so many characters, I had no connection with any of them. While the point of the novel was that life is hard in a large family, Minot could have gone into further depth on this topic. There was not enough room in the story to describe the emotions of all her characters. Seven children are too many for what this book is trying to tell about.
Minot is talented at making the reader understand what is going on without directly saying it. However, I felt there was a lack of foreshadowing in this novel. If each chapter stood alone they would make nice short stories, but put together they lacked something. If there was a link between chapters, something to connect them, this book would have been more interesting. However, instead, I often found myself thinking, "How is this important or relevant to the rest of the book?"
The first and last chapters were interesting and moving. In 'Hiding', Sophie is the narrator and I get a sense of who she is and what she thinks. This book would have been much more captivating had each chapter been told from each of the children, and the remaining two chapters told by the mother and father.

This is not a badly written 'novel', but I found that I didn't care a bit about any of these characters -- with the possible exception of the first couple of 'chapters' (and I put it that way because, to me, this really felt more like a collection of short stories -- and indeed, much of it has appeared in that form in various publications), when they were very young children.

Perhaps because of the way their parents lived and raised them, and the fact that they are so privileged financially, the children grow up to be spoiled and self-centered, with few redeeming qualities -- I know this may seem a bit judgemental, this being a work of fiction, but when I read a book, I try to identify or sympathize with at least one of the characters. Pretty much without exception, all of the children in this book turn out to be brats who never really grow up. There was a quote on the book's cover comparing Susan Minot's work to that of J. D. Salinger -- she's a talented writer, but this doesn't hold a candle to his work.

I much preferred THE TINY ONE, by Minot's sister Eliza -- her style was much warmer and gentler, and the characters she drew much more likable. I've read a lot of good comment's about Susan's writing, so I'm still curious to check out some of her other books -- but this one disappointed me.

Take a break, read this book. Want your heart broken in a way that makes sense? A way you know is true, we all practice for? "Monkeys" will put a permanent pillow under your head. It becomes sweet.

Susan Minot's male characters have always been a mystery. They've obsessed and enthralled and ultimately disappointed her heroines, but we were always left confounded by them. I am thinking mostly of the love interests in Folly and Evening. We only find out through the casual discussions of disinterested characters that these guys are heartless. Finally, we are in the mind of one of these flighty males, and I for one am relieved to know what he's thinking. I understand him better than I thought I would. In that way, Rapture as a whole is insightful and comforting with its universal pain type theme. My only objection is that the whole time they are engaged in an act to give HIM pleasure, and it is in fact only the female who is transported by this, going so far as to call it "worship" (had to stop myself from throwing the book at this point). It heightens unnecessarily the degradation and the disappointment that the woman is facing. However, I really enjoyed this book, and struggled with the star rating. And for once it was nice to know what the man in a Susan Minot book is thinking. He wasn't such a mystery after all. In fact, I recognized myself in him. And of course that is the beauty of this novella- that we will recognize ourselves in both characters.

Chalk is to cheese as men are to women.

The difference between the genders is put on full display in a new novel that is grabbing the attention of the book world.

Susan Minot's "Rapture" finds two former lovers, Benjamin and Kay, in the midst of a reunion.

In a decision that explains a lot of the fervor over her book, Minot sets the entire novel within this encounter, entering the characters' heads as they have sex, in the Bill Clinton definition of the word.

Two bodies can hardly be closer, while two minds couldn't be further apart.

Kay romanticizes the encounter, and thinks about her addiction to Benjamin, how she likes all the things about him that she isn't supposed to and even telling him that her act is an act of "worship."

Benjamin, meanwhile, seems distant during the whole thing, as he contemplates Vanessa, the woman he can't get out from under his skin and wonders what Kay is thinking.

While all of this is going on, Minot has the characters remember the chain of events that brought them together, as well as the reasons they broke up.

"Rapture" is a daring work, to be sure, and Minot takes her time in telling the story of Benjamin and Kay's relationship.

But there's something missing. We never really connect with her characters as they rendezvous.

Ben, in particular, seems like more of a jerk than anything for leading Kay on, and we wish Kay were not so stupid as to fall for him again.

Which is exactly Minot's point in showing the differences between the man and the woman, but it leaves the audience without someone to root for.

Still, "Rapture" is short in comparison to some of the other lengthy tomes currently rocking the literary world (Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections," for instance) and can easily be digested in one setting.

But readers will still be hungry after finishing it.

I would agree with the other reviewers that said this book missed its mark. However, I still enjoyed it and am glad I read it. Here is why:

This novella is a very dark treatment of sexual relations and how difficult it is to surrender oneself to a single relationship of fidelity. The major characters are Kay and Benjamin, who go though their relationship that cannot exist. Why? Because Benjamin is engaged to another woman, Vanessa, that he really loves.

Where this book is successful is in exploring the "second guessings" that come with people knowing they are bad for each other... but still craving each others flesh. Minot's writing leaves no question that the characters are connected in a type of love... just not the kind that can go anywhere. Thus, it is an intensely frustrating experience trying to follow them through the encounter that is the backdrop to the story ---> a session of oral sex that will most likely be their last.

Where this story failed for me, is that it seemed to short-schrift the sexual tension. I have never been so unimpressed with a b.j. in my life... yet that is the premise of what the characters "rapture" is. Thus, it sets up a sexuality that is never delivered on, and has a very dark take on relationships.

Again, I certainly understand why people were disappointed... yet I did enjoy it, and would recommend it to those prone to helplessness and dark stories.

This compilation of snapshots, many from backstage in the fashion world, tries very hard, but misses by a mile. The pictures are OK, mostly, but no more, and the design is just too precious -- ring-bound, in a looseleaf-notebook-style cover (Oh, HOW clever!), and much of the minimal text (one full page) is set black-on-dark grey, so you can't read it. There are pithy comments from famous folks juxtaposed with some of the pix, but they don't amount to much. If you want a book like this, try Arthur Elgort's Models Manual -- it's 1000% better. I was given this book as a gift -- otherwise I would have sent it back.

What a great book! Makes the perfect gift, but be sure to buy two because you are going to want to keep it for yourself!

This thing is abyssmal, just terrible and amatuerishly written. Nuff said.

This book was a spin-off from the movie, Stealing Beauty, and like most books based on movies, the book fails to capture the mood and romance of the original. Description of the Italian countryside in this books pales in comparision to Bertoluccis' masterful use of the camera. The magnetic appeal of the film is lost in second-rate descriptive attempts and clumsy use of words. Regretfully, the author gets caught up in retelling the movie's blocking and action scene by scene and forgets to focus on the characters and the story being told.

However, if you enjoyed following Lucy's coming of age story and want to relive the moments, you could like this book.

For people who loved the film, Stealing Beauty may be worth a look. For everyone else, I'm sure you could easily find a more thoughtful, worthwhile and enjoyable book to read.

This movie is unbelievably bello, carino, it is beautiful. The story is touching, the landscape is like candy, and the ending is beautiful as well. Lucy is a girl almost a woman, who is searching for her the answer to an intriguing passage she found in her mother's diary. She is also searching for the boy, now almost a man also, who she kissed the last time she visited the breathtaking Italian villa four years past. This movie will leave you feeling like you have just witnessed a moment of beauty so strong and so intense that you will feel changed.