This is a wonderful, insightful book about mid-life crisis, with many provocative observations about religious faith, love and contemporary social mores. I agree with Library Journal's review, which characterized it as "lighthearted...noteworty... characters capably rendered...many scenes memorable." They said it was "recommended" and I agree.
A finely written novel of facing a midlife crisis, sure to please many a reader
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 15 years ago
Sometimes that pain in your heart is an ailment more than physical. "Chest Pains" is the story of the broken dreams and aspirations of Gordon Clay. His music career failed; he is still alone in his thirties; and his life is not unfolding anything like he would have wanted it to. Driven to turn his life around, he sets his eyes on unlikely prospects for his career and may find love in the strangest of places... "Chest Pains" is a finely written novel of facing a midlife crisis, sure to please many a reader.
Pain and deception, love and redemption
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 15 years ago
The characters in Janet Nichols Lynch's recent novel , Chest Pains, have been alive in my imagination since I finished reading about them over a week ago. They are neither sleuths nor heroes, not celebrities nor spies. They live in California but are far from the glamour of Hollywood. They are, in a phrase, a motley and multicultural crew--a lonely and aging bachelor who lives with two cats and is a community college music instructor; a cheerful, marathon-running nun who is tone deaf but seeking a calling in music--and living with another nun who has developed stigmata; and a small boy who is the unwanted child of a mother who was herself abused as a child. How the lives of these unlikely characters become entwined through the need to love and to be loved is the compelling and insightful story that Lynch has created in this beautifully written novel. Deception and pain are inextricably mixed with hope and redemption in a realistic portrayal of human beings who are, after all, living heroically in trying to make sense of their lives.
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