The Whole World Over [Paperback]

Three Junes left many readers asking for more (a lot more in some cases) and Julia Glass was apparently more than aware of the fact. Her second novel picks up some of the story lines from the first one but does so quite half-heartedly. What we get instead is the story of a cook who gets her chance in the West but as she has a family in New York, the novel oscillates between the West and the East Coast. Well, we get more... There are at least five more or less separate story-lines which cross every now and then making the reading somewhat difficult.
The result is far from satisfying. Fans of home-made pastry may find introduction of gay characters distracting, fans of gay novels may find the kitchen sink part rather slow. The book does not come together - too many story-lines do not form a coherent network. It does have better parts (final chapters about 9/11 and the following days stand out) but you have to soldier on for several chapters to get there and sometimes one starts asking for a cast of characters conveniently placed on the cover. If this is your holiday reading, make sure to have some backup in case you got lost completely in the story. However, it may be a perfect choice for an All Inclusive holiday, the descriptions of food and restaurants will certainly keep you hungry all the time

I have to say that this novel is really rather dull. Which is a shame, as Glass' first, "Three Junes", was fantastic. It's not really a novel, I think - just a rambling series of notes about stuff. And so very disjointed. I also thought all the characters were really quite nasty or dull. I didn't care about Alan or Greenie, or even Walter - and Ray, who could have been wonderfully eccentric and free-spirited, was simply crass and arrogant. Don't ask me who they all ended up with - I really couldn't work it out, and I'm afraid I cared even less. It would have been so much better if it had been cut by at least half. Do read "Three Junes" - it's fantastic. But my advice is to give this one a wide berth.

Author Julia Glass in her new novel The whole World Over presents life through the eyes of an eclectic collection of characters whose lives intersect throughout the few years leading up to the fateful events of September 11th. Greenie Duquette thinks she has everything. A successful Greenwich Village pastry chef, Greenie owns her own catering business, and is married to psychotherapist husband Alan. They have a four-year-old son George, who is an avid reader and somewhat of a child prodigy.

But Greenie's tranquil and settled life belies fact that she's just aching to break out of the mold. When her best restaurateur friend Walter tells her of a job opportunity to be private chef for the Governor of New Mexico, Greenie jumps at the prospect. She doesn't hesitate to move to Santa Fe, taking the young George with her. Alan, of course, is slightly chagrined, underhandedly resenting Greenie's success, but stubbornly refusing to join her.

As a result, the couple's marriage slowly fractures and they drift apart. Greenie hooks up with Charlie, a handsome old flame, whilst Alan discovers that he once fathered a child with Marion, a high-school sweetheart. Meanwhile, the inexplicably blessed and footloose Walter becomes embroiled in a romantic entanglement with Gordie, an attractive attorney, who is in long-term relationship with Stephen. Stephen and Gordie are Alan's patients, and both were thinking of adopting a child until Gordie unceremoniously dumped Stephen.

But is Stephen's passion for child rearing only masking his heartbreak, in which the bubble might ultimately, burst? The passion of the young twenty-something Saga - who coincidently meets Alan on the street - is to care for lost animals. She hooks up with the older cynical Stan, an organizer of a group of people to look out for strays and rescue abused animals in Manhattan. Saga is trying to take back her life after suffering from a devastating brain injury. She not only finds solace in Alan's friendship, but also seeks comfort with Scottish bookseller Fenno McLeod.

Together with a large supporting cast, Glass' characters are consistently orbiting each other in a type of six degrees of separation-like fugue, where the actions of a person in New York at the end of the day influence the life of someone in Santa Fe or San Francisco. The central protagonists in this novel always seem to be yearning for the same things - love, respect, and even babies, and all at various times are plagued with doubts, regrets and agonies.

Deep down Greenie yearns to escape this city, and getaway from the anxieties of how to get along with her husband and how to afford a home where her son can have a real room. Walter is glad to be sentimentalist, and is unashamed of the homeliest pleasures, but his life is thrown into chaos when his young nephew arrives from San Francisco to stay for an extended period. Saga is confused and in pain and humiliated by the inability to recover parts of herself that she could almost recall. And Alan must wrestle with his own demons, especially with guilt over his infidelity with Marion all those years ago.

As the past progressively encroaches on the present - there are meticulous back-stories on each character - Glass steadily draws her protagonists into the chaos of 9/11. Greenie - obviously the central character - is unable to deny the reality of her situation - she can evidently have a great life in Santa Fe, but her dilemma is whether she can forsake her marriage and her husband for this life. Soon she discovers that her two worlds are not as easily separated, as she believed.

These people inhabit a loaded, political, euphemistic, and convoluted world and although they might venture into "the whole world over," in the end they return to their separate colonies. The themes of baking and cooking appear throughout and it's as though Glass is almost intent to liken her characters to recipes. The realization, however is that people are in the end not at all like recipes, "you could have all the right ingredients in all the right amounts and still there were no guarantees."

Meticulously written, The Whole World Over is a conversationalist's delight. The dialogue is witty and clever - keep in mind, these are all highly intelligent and cultured people, who also just happen to be remarkably spirited and who set upon life with a gusto that is undiminished, and almost certainly revered.

At over five hundred pages, the book is indeed a weighty tome, and sometimes it is not as tightly knit, as it should be. The convoluted storyline - as it switches from Santa Fe, to New York and then on to Maine - along with the endlessly droll conversations end up making the novel a bit tedious. The characters are nothing if not educated and presumably smart enough to work their problems out and along the way, they are constantly tested by events often beyond their control. There is so much life embedded in these characters that you can forgive any of the novel's apparent shortcomings. Mike Leonard July 06.