Bedrock

By all appearances, Clea Shawn has a dream life -- a successful career as a freelance photographer, a handsome rich husband, a townhouse in Manhattan, two kids, a devoted best friend, and as many love affairs as she chooses to pursue. But now, on the brink of menopause, Clea has become bored -- bored with her husband Turner and his endless business trips and dalliances; bored with the New York fast lane; bored with the games of adultery. Clea is ripe for a radical change of scene -- and she thinks she has found it in the seemingly idyllic town of Roches Ridge, Vermont. Falling in love with the town at first sight, Clea buys a decaying but atmospheric old stone house and prepares to embark on a different kind of dream life in the lush green countryside. Only this time her dream collides with a very strange -- and very funny -- dose of reality. Modulating between high comedy, social satire, and serious soul-searching, "Bedrock" is one of Lisa Alther's most engaging, most fully achieved novels. As Marilyn French puts it, " "Bedrock" is a hoot to read, but humor is only one of its graces. Lisa Alther writes with a profound acceptance of human variety and vagary that is rare in this mean age and that lifts the spirits."