Writers & Lovers

By Lily King, Grove Press, 2020, 324 pages
Reviewed by Angela Allen, July 23, 2020

It’s a novel but it reads like a memoir of struggling, determined 30-something writer named Casey yet to arrive on any literary scene.

She juggles men as poorly as she does dinner orders at the posh restaurant where she waits tables. She has several lovers, all of whom show her something about what a writer is and isn’t. They include a “literary retreat” poet whom she later discovers is married; a widower who is a successful writer with two irresistible young kids; and an awkward boyish guy, Silas, she eventually settles in with — and who writes a little without being an egotistical jerk about it.

She lives in a garden shed in Cambridge owned by one of her brother’s lovers and rides a bike, has a dreadful relationship with her somewhat estranged father, and has to come to terms with the recent death of her mother as she does with her writing.

How long can she live on the edge?

OK. I liked the book. Casey doesn’t seem too spoiled and lucky and beautiful though you know she is. Eventually she lands an outrageously wonderful book deal and a good job at a private school — and Silas, a real lover. She gets everything, but I still liked the book.

I wouldn’t call the novel Chick-Lit. King is too good a writer for her work to be relegated to that category.