The Whole World Over

Starred review from February 27, 2006
In her second rich, subtle novel, Glass reveals how the past impinges on the present, and how small incidents of fate and chance determine the future. Greenie Duquette has a small bakery in Manhattan's West Village that supplies pastries to restaurants, including that of her genial gay friend Walter. When Walter recommends Greenie to the governor of New Mexico, she seizes the chance to become the Southwesterner's pastry chef and to take a break from her marriage to Alan Glazier, a psychiatrist with hidden issues. Taking their four-year-old son, George, with her, Greenie leaves for New Mexico, while figures from her and Alan's pasts challenge their already strained marriage. Their lives intersect with those of such fully dimensional secondary characters as Fenno McLeod, the gay bookseller from Three Junes
; Saga, a 30-something woman who lost her memory in an accident; and Saga's Uncle Marsden, a Yale ecologist who takes care of her. While this work is less emotionally gripping than Three Junes
, Glass brings the same assured narrative drive and engaging prose to this exploration of the quest for love and its tests—absence, doubt, infidelity, guilt and loss. 200,000 first printing; 12-city author tour.

Starred review from March 15, 2006
How does one follow up a National Book Award? Glass ("Three Junes") creates an array of full-bodied yet vulnerable characters whose intersecting lives converge on September 11. Greenie Duquette owns a patisserie in a basement space in Manhattan. Her husband, Alan Glazier, is a psychotherapist with a dwindling practice. Restaurateur Walter recommends Greenie to the governor of New Mexico, who is looking for a chef. Walter has the hots for lawyer Gordie, whose longtime partner, Stephen, suddenly wants a baby. The men take their troubles to Alan, now alone at home while Greenie (really Charlotte) moves their five-year-old son, George, to the wilds of Santa Fe. Saga works for an animal rescue group and suffers from memory loss following an accident; she persuades Alan to adopt a puppy. And bookstore owner Fenno returns from "Junes" as a foundational piece of this intriguing tapestry. As a poster in Fenno's shop declares about birds, they -fly the whole world over but always -&find their way back home. - Glass's long but always captivating tale is a quilt of many colors and motivations whose strongest threads are love of family and sense of self. Highly recommended for all libraries. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/15/06.]" -Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2006
The many readers who embraced Glass' National Book Award-winning debut, " hree "Junes (2002), will be pleased to learn that one of the novel's central characters, New York city bookstore owner Fenno McLeod, plays a role in her follow-up. In the same neighborhood as Fenno's store, Greenie Duquette, a young wife and mother, labors over her rich pastries, which, thanks to her friend Walter, catch the notice of New Mexico governor Ray McCrae. Ray offers Greenie the chance to be his personal chef, so she and her young son, George, head to New Mexico, leaving behind her therapist husband, Alan, with a dwindling practice. Alan befriends Saga, a young woman whose sense of purpose in life was taken away when an accident affected her appearance and memory. Meanwhile, Walter is embroiled in an affair with a man who recently separated from his lover but might not be so ready to move on. As the characters grapple with change and uncertainty in their lives, Glass gracefully builds up to the traumatic event that will affect them all, deftly exploring the sacrifices, compromises, and leaps of faith that accompany love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)

July 10, 2006
When an author uses the same characters in more than one novel, the audio performance can be accurately compared. Fenno, a gay man who emigrates from Scotland to New York's Greenwich Village, is for many readers the most endearing character in Julia Glass's first novel, Three Junes
, read by John Keating, who captured the cadences and charm of Fenno's native land. O'Hare, in contrast, produces a rather vague accent that could be Irish or Scottish. He also endows the New Mexico governor with a Texas accent, though the heartiness with which O'Hare portrays him is perfect. Despite these flaws, O'Hare has an eloquent, easy-to-listen-to voice that covers the large canvas of Glass's novel handily. He does particularly well with the main couple, Alan and Greenie, and O'Hare's rendition of their four-year-old son, George, is marvelous. It's a shame that the audio is not available unabridged through retail outlets. (Books on Tape, a division of Random House, has a 23-hour unabridged version on audible.com.) While condensation may work well for Campbell's Soup and tomes that are improved by having their windy digressions clipped, Glass's novel was one of the most wonderful reads of the summer and didn't need editing. Simultaneous release with the Pantheon hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 27).