Life Sentences: A Novel

by Laura Lippman

Book Overview

Past and present, truth and memory collide in this searing novel from the award winning, New York Times bestselling author A successful memoirist returns home to Baltimore searching for inspiration... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061128899
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: William Morrow
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

An OK Read

Laura Lippman is such a clever writer but this story just was'nt her best book. I suppose it would appeal to women who had friendships in elementary school and beyond who reconnected in their 50's and all had different opinions of their childhood experiences. This is also about the stories our parents tell us that end up being lies. An okay read.

A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma

Don't be misguided (and then disappointed) into expecting a conventional crime thriller. This is a novel about the impact of memories on people's lives and the impact of people's lives on their memories. Cassandra Fallows, a successful author of two memoirs, is trying to bounce back after an unsuccessful turn as a novelist. She decides on a thirty year (and more) backward journey into her Baltimore childhood, where she was the lone Caucasian in her group of black girlfriends from economically diverse backgrounds. She had already written extensively about her two marriages and her father, a professor of known intellect and even better known infidelities. He left Cassandra's mother following a scandalous and public declaration of love for another woman he declared his "destiny". And now Cassandra is contemplating her own certitude as she mines the detritus of the past once again and attempts to solve a few riddles. The center of her new memoir is the enigmatic Calliope Jenkins, one of Cassandra's girlhood friends, who served seven years in prison for contempt of court. She was accused of murdering her infant son, but there was no body found and no confession extracted. Cassandra is determined to track down Calliope and her other friends--Trish, Fatima, and Donna--and conduct her own investigation into this superannuated case, which requires her to locate some of the police and attorneys that were involved. Unfortunately, their cooperation is not as forthcoming as she thought it would be. As the story advances, the reader gains perspective into the lives of her old friends (and others involved in this case), including their various and resentful reactions to her previous memoirs. These grudges fuel their motivations for stonewalling Cassandra or purposely misdirecting her. She had placed her friends in her memoirs peripherally, but they claim, erroneously. They think Cassandra is a narcissist with a self-promoting agenda and are therefore eager to subvert her newest installation. Along with buried memories are buried secrets, and everyone has their share. Although Calliope is intended as the fulcrum of Cassandra's memoir, she is ultimately a mirror for Cassandra's life--the betrayals she felt and the betrayals she dealt; her mixed bag of ethics; her insight and blindness; and her hunger for love and recognition. Calliope is a mystery, but the larger mystery is concealed within the filter of Cassandra's memories. Ultimately, the veracity of her prior memoirs is a pivotal question in this unconventional thriller. Lippman is a master of language and storytelling. Her focus on memories is both the essence and a departure for the story as a whole. Cassandra's determination to interview her old friends--moneyed and politically connected Donna and her attorney brother, Reg, (who was Calliope's second attorney), surburbanized Tish, and exuberant Fatima, a former wild one whose life now revolves around the church and her many fine clothes.

Will resonate with anyone who has really tried to understand his or her personal origins

If you pay attention to the book publishing industry at all (or if you watch "Oprah"), it's pretty much impossible to ignore the recent rash of highly publicized, heart-tugging memoirs that turn out to be embellished, altered, or completely fabricated versions of reality. In LIFE SENTENCES, Laura Lippman's first stand-alone mystery after 2007's exquisite WHAT THE DEAD KNOW, one of the questions the author explores is: what if a memoirist records a skewed version of the past, but through no fault of her own? LIFE SENTENCES, like Lippman's other novels (including her well-regarded series starring Tess Monaghan), is set in Baltimore. Also like WHAT THE DEAD KNOW, Lippman's latest is inspired by a real-life crime story, this time one in which a woman whose son disappeared while under the (questionable) oversight of the Department of Social Services refused to testify in court and spent seven years in prison as a result. In LIFE SENTENCES, the woman in question is Calliope Jenkins, who has virtually disappeared from sight since serving that prison time. When Calliope's name is mentioned on the national news in comparison with another case of a mother refusing to testify, it catches the attention of Cassandra Fallows. Cassandra, who now lives in New York City, is the author of two well-regarded memoirs and a less well-reviewed novel. She's also one of Calliope's former classmates, the only white girl in a close-knit group of friends that unraveled after middle school. What, Cassandra wonders, caused Callie's life to go so awry, when her life --- and the lives of the other African-American girls in their clique --- turned out so much better? It seems that Callie's story --- interwoven with the stories of Cassandra's childhood friendships --- just might be the genesis for Cassandra's next memoir. But when she returns to Baltimore to interview those childhood friends, as well as the lawyers and police officers involved in Callie's case, she discovers that not only do they not share many of Cassandra's memories, they also resent her portrayals of them in her earlier memoirs and resist cooperating with her next tell-all. Finding these holes in her own story forces Cassandra to reexamine everything --- including her family saga --- that was the basis of her groundbreaking first memoir. What about her own life is true? And what is the truth about Calliope Jenkins? What's striking about LIFE SENTENCES is that, in the final analysis, Cassandra's investigation of Callie's story --- and the truths she uncovers --- are ultimately less compelling than the dual stories of her attempts to reconnect with a past she thought she understood and her dawning recognition that her impulse to tell the truth in her writing is ultimately based on a whole series of faulty memories and outright lies. Although Lippman's latest stand-alone comes up short both as a straightforward mystery novel and in comparison with the storytelling strength of WHAT THE DEAD KNOW, it neverthel

The Betrayals and Secrets of Memory and Perspective...

The role of memory and perspective shape this tale of a writer - Cassandra Fallows is known for her memoirs about her childhood experiences - with details called into question by some of the other characters about whom she wrote. Cassandra was the white girl with several elegant and privileged black friends - Tisha, Donna and Fatima. Their memories of events were quite different from her perspective on things. When she reconnects with them many years later, in order to put together the details of another story she is working on, she learns about these discrepancies. Cassandra grew up in Baltimore with her intellectual father Cedric, a classics professor, and her less-colorful and almost "boring" mother Lenore. Her parents separated after the riots of 1968, when Cedric fell in love with Annie, a black woman he supposedly saved from being raped during the fracas. Now Cassandra, enjoying the fruits of her success as a writer, takes on the project of writing about another school friend - Calliope Jenkins - who was jailed after the supposed death of her youngest son, because she refused to talk or reveal where he might be. He is either dead or missing. She maintains her silence through seven long years until she is released from prison. She only talks to Cassandra - finally - when a discovery during research reveals several secrets and the truth hiding behind a cover of powerful people protecting their own betrayals. As old lies and betrayals surface, Cassandra finally begins to put together the truth in her own life - discrepancies in memory were not wholly responsible for the wrong details in her story. She simply had not had all of the facts. How will the "truth" alter her life now? Will she correct the misconceptions of the past? How will she reshape her current life in view of the new facts available to her? As Life Sentences: A Novel veers from one point of view to another, the reader soon comes to realize that "truth" and "memory" are multifaceted and that each person's reality is very personal and unique to that individual. Laurel-Rain Snow Author of: Web of Tyranny, etc.

Lippman doesn't disappoint

Reading the other reviews here answered one of my questions. As a Baltimore native, when I read any of Lippman's work, in addition to loving her presentation and story, there's the thrill of recognition - I know that street corner! I know that liquor store! I see now that not being a Baltimore native doesn't detract a bit. Besides being a gripping story (I forced myself to ration it to 2 sittings so it would last the whole weekend)it made me reflect on memory. How true are my memories? How are they different from what others remember? What is the impact of a national historical moment - the MLK assassination in this case - on my local personal memories? I like Tess more, but this Cassandra Fellows is fascinating. And I never get enough of Gloria! Please hurry Laura - write more stories!

a brilliant departure

This stand-alone mystery might surprise some Lippman fans. It's more about relationships than crime. The main character is a successful memoir writer who returns to her childhood circle in Baltimore to write a third memoir about a former friend who may or may not have killed her own child. The memoirist doesn't get a warm welcome from the old friends she wrote about in her previous books. This is a detective story in that she is forced to put together the puzzle of what really happened to that child. It is not what you might expect. There's power, politics, and passion here. Lippman writes with intelligence and a reporter's insight into the mysteries of society's ills.