Book Review: Comeback Love

I just love the publication story of  Comeback Love by Peter Golden.  I was talking with John Muse, my sales rep from Simon & Schuster a couple of weeks ago about this book, which he "discovered" as a self-published book from the Book House in Albany. They're a wonderful indie bookstore with their own Espresso Book Machine and they offer publication possibilities for local authors. John was so impressed with the book that he pitched it to his own company, who eventually bought the rights to it, and Washington Square Press published it about one month ago. I love publishing success stories like that, and when I personally know any of the players involved it makes it even better.

Gordon and Glenna had an amazing love affair at the close of the 1960s, but their relationship was no match for Gordon's financial insecurities and Glenna's personal ones.  The political verve that marked those years also marked the beginning of the end of their love, with Vietnam pinning them in on one side and Glenna's illegal abortion activities hemming them in on the other.  Still, Glenna and Gordon never forgot each other, but when decades later Gordon decides to look her up again, the temptation to settle back into the same old patterns is strong.

I thought this was a very readable and pleasant story of first love and love renewed.  I'm almost exactly midway between the ages the characters are at the beginning and at the end of the novel, and it was interesting to me to feel similar levels of sympathy toward the younger and older selves of the couple. I wouldn't exactly say that this book changed my life, but it did encourage my mind to wander paths of nostalgia while I was reading. It even prompted me to dream about my own first love (cheers, M, wherever you are!), which I suppose is a testament the story and the power of memory.

This would make a good book club discussion book, particularly if the readers are closer in age to the older Gordon and Glenna.

~Emily