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A False Sense of Well Being
by Jeanne Braselton
Product Group: Book
Publisher: G. K. Hall & Company (2001-12)
ISBN: 0783896425
EAN: 9780783896427
Dewy Decimal #: 813.6
Hardcover: 400 pages
SKU: H4852
Condition: Good
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
“I was married eleven years before I started imagining how different life could be if my husband were dead. . . .”
At thirty-eight, Jessie Maddox subscribes to House Beautiful, Southern Living, even Psychology Today. She has a comfortable life in Glenville, Georgia, with Turner, the most reliable, responsible husband in the world. But after the storybook romance, “happily ever after” never came. Now the housewife who once wanted to be Martha Stewart before there was a Martha Stewart is left to wonder: Where did the marriage go wrong? Why can’t she stop picturing herself as the perfect grieving widow?
As Jessie dives headlong into her midlife crisis, she is aided and abetted by a colorful cast of characters in the true Southern tradition: her best friend and next door neighbor Donna, who is having a wild adulterous affair with a younger man; Wanda McNab, the sweater-knitting, cookie-baking grandmother who is charged with killing her abusive husband. Then there’s Jessie’s eccentric family. Her younger sister Ellen, born to be a guest on Jerry Springer, has taken her seven-year-old son and squawking pet birds and left her husband “for good this time” . . . while their mother crosses the dirty words out of library books and alerts everyone to the wonderful bargains at Winn-Dixie, often at the same time. And then there’s the stuffed green headless duck . . .
When a trip home to the small town of her childhood raises more questions than it answers, Jessie is forced to face the startling truth head-on–and confront the tragedy that has shadowed her heart and shaken her faith in love . . . and the future.
From a brilliant new voice in fiction, here is a darkly comic novel full of revelation and insight. The danger of secrets and the power of confession . . . The pull of family, no matter how crazy. . . The fate of wedlock when one can’t find the key . . . Jeanne Braselton weaves these potent themes into a funny, poignant, utterly engaging story of a woman at the crossroads–and the unforgettable journey she must take to get back home.
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Customer Reviews
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Boring
Rating  (2)
Date: 2007-06-14
After 60 pages, i got the idea already: she's bored with her husband and most of her life. maybe something more interesting happens later, but i stopped there.
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A False Sense of A Good Book...
Rating (2)
Date: 2005-10-27
2 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
I probably should of listened to the reviews I read on this book before I started it. Most people here didn't care much for it, but I thought it sounded like great southern reading...well I was wrong. This was one of the dullest books I've read in a long time.
The only reason I'm giving this 2 stars is beacause of Wanda McNabb, the one character in the book that I liked. The rest of the cast was so one dimensional and drab that I barley made it through. Jessie turned out to be just a predictable bored housewife.
Overall, this is definitely not a book I'd recommend. It's just a winey account of an upper middle-class wife who's tired of the normal hum-drum of her life. There's absolutely better reading out there.
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Lovely Southern Fiction
Rating  (5)
Date: 2005-06-01
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This lovely novel is laughing out loud funny, yet touching. It is beautifully plotted, as the narrator/protagonist gradually clues us in and our view of her reality changes. People who don't believe God has a sense of humor would be happier to give this one a pass.
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Not Enough For Me
Rating  (3)
Date: 2005-01-04
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I like this genre of book- middle-age woman suddenly finding herself lost in life & begins exploration. I just couldn't help but have a difficult time in finding a lot of originality within the pages.
I wanted it funnier & there are parts I think could've been, but simply fizzled. I found it particularly amusing when our heroine went back home for a visit & had to share the same roof with her sister's many exotic, talking birds.
Not much stood out in this book. It was okay, but I was expecting at least a bit more boundary-pushing going on. Not just a home visit spent looking back on first loves then finally figuring out that your present home w/ hubby is not so bad.
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Thoroughly Disappointed
Rating  (1)
Date: 2003-12-03
2 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
I had a very difficult time getting into this book. The characters were shallow, the plot undeveloped, and overall a complete waste of time. I would expect "searching for self" books to be a little more deep and rich than this poor read.
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