Summer Blowout
Claire Cook, 2008
Hyperion
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781401340957
Summary
A good makeup artist never panics. Bella Shaughnessy knows this. She’s the resident makeup maven in a family of Boston Irish hair salon owners; she has an artful solution to almost every problem. But Bella feels bruised beyond the reach of even the best concealer when her half-sister runs off with her husband. What could she come up with to cover a hurt like that?
Plenty, it turns out. She conceives an invigorating new business idea, and soon meets a cute entrepreneur who can help out. Despite their bickering, they can’t seem to stay away from success—or from each other. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 14, 1955
• Where—Alexandria, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., Syracuse University
• Currently—Scituate, Massachusetts
Raised on Nancy Drew mysteries, Claire Cook has wanted to write ever since she was a little girl. She majored in theater and creative writing at Syracuse University and immersed herself in a number of artistic endeavors (copywriter, radio continuity director, garden designer, and dance and aerobics choreographer), yet somehow her dreams got pushed to the side for more real-life matters—like marriage, motherhood, and a teaching career. Decades passed, then one day she found herself parked in her minivan at 5 AM, waiting for her daughter to finish swim practice. She was struck with a now-or-never impulse and began writing on the spot. By the end of the season, she had a first draft. Her first novel, Ready to Fall, was published in 2000, when Cook was 45.
Since then, this "late starter" has more than made up for lost time. She struck gold with her second book, Must Love Dogs. Published in 2002, this story of a middle-aged divorcee whose singles ad produces hilariously unexpected results was declared "funny and pitch-perfect" by the Chicago Tribune and "a hoot" by the Boston Globe. (The novel got a second life in 2005 with the release of the feature film starring Diane Lane and John Cusack.) Cook's subsequent novels, with their wry, witty take on the lives of middle-aged women, have become bestsellers and book club favorites.
Upbeat, gregarious, and grateful for her success, Cook is an inspiration for aspiring writers and women in midlife transition. She tours indefatigably for her novels and genuinely enjoys speaking with fans. She also conducts frequent writing workshops, where she dispenses advice and encouragement in equal measure. "I'm extraordinarily lucky to spend my time doing what I love," she has said on countless occasions. "The workshops are a way to say thank you and open doors that I stumbled through to make it easier for writers coming up behind me."
Extras
From a 2004 Barnes & Noble interview:
• I first knew I was a writer when I was three. My mother entered me in a contest to name the Fizzies whale, and I won in my age group. It's quite possible that mine was the only entry in my age group since "Cutie Fizz" was enough to win my family a six-month supply of Fizzies tablets (root beer was the best flavor) and half a dozen turquoise plastic mugs with removable handles. At six I had my first story on the "Little People's Page" in the Sunday paper (about Hot Dog, the family Dachshund) and at sixteen, I had my first front page feature in the local weekly.
• In the acknowledgments of Multiple Choice I say that even though it's probably undignified to admit it, I'm having a blast as a novelist. To clarify that, having a blast as a novelist does not necessarily mean having a blast with the actual writing. The people part—meeting readers and booksellers and librarians and the media—is very social and I'm having lots of fun with that. The writing part is great, too, once you get past the procrastination, the self-doubt, and the feelings of utter despair. It's all of the stuff surrounding the writing that's hard; once you find your zone, your place of flow, or whatever it is we're currently calling it, and lose yourself in the writing, it really is quite wonderful. I've heard writers say it's better than sex, though I'm not sure I'd go that far.
• I love books that don't wrap everything up too neatly at the end, and I think it's a big compliment to hear that a reader is left wanting more. After each novel, I hear from many readers asking for a sequel— they say they just have to find out what will happen to these people next. I think it's wonderful that the characters have come to life for them. But, for now, I think I'll grow more as a writer by trying to create another group of quirky characters. Maybe a few books down the road, I'll feel ready to return to some of them—who knows?
• When asked what book most influenced her life as a writer, here is her answer:
I get asked this question a lot on book tour, and I'm always tempted to say anything by Jane Austen or Alice Munro, just so people will know I'm well read, and sometimes I'm even tempted to say something by Gogol, just so people will think I'm really, really well read. But, alas, ultimately I tell the truth. The Nancy Drew books influenced me the most. I think they taught me a lot about pacing, and about ending chapters in such a way that the reader just can't put the book down and absolutely has to read on to the next chapter. I also think these books are responsible for the fact that I can't, for the life of me, write a chapter that's much longer than ten pages.
There's another variation of this question that I'm asked all the time on book tour: Who are your favorite authors? I always answer it the same way: My favorite authors are the ones who've been nice to me. It's so important for established authors to take emerging authors under their wings. Two who've been particularly generous to me as mentors and friends are Mameve Medwed and Jeanne Ray. Fortunately, they both happen to be very talented—and funny—so if you've somehow missed their books, you should read them immediately. (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
The exuberant and charming Claire Cook (ask anyone who saw her at this spring's Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival) is one of the sassiest and funniest creators of contemporary women's fiction.... Summer Blowout, is every bit as much fun as Must Love Dogs and Life's a Beach.
New Orleans Time-Picayune
Nobody does the easy-breezy beach book with a lighter hand than Claire Cook.... In Summer Blowout...you soon find yourself on another of Cook's delightful tours of the funny side of big family life.
Hartford Courant
You won ’t have to don your sunglasses for this sunny delight by the author of Must Love Dogs. Makeup artist Bella Shaughnessy has a thing for lipstick—with names like Catfight, Damaged and Revive—a family that gives new meaning to the expression blended (thanks to a half-sister who’s dating Bella’s ex-husband) and a ban on men (see half-sister). Which is too bad, because she’s just met Sean Ryan, an entrepreneur with sparkling eyes and a proposal, business that is—or is it?—for Bella. As refreshing as an icy drink on a sultry day.
Family Circle
A brisk story, Summer Blowout is primed to become a big-screen romantic comedy. —Hilary Hatton
Booklist
Cook updates the themes of love and disenchantment that drove Life's a Beach and Must Love Dogs in her latest beacher. Bella Shaughnessy, a makeup artist whose solace in times of hardship is finding just the right lipstick to match her mood, gets a divorce and quits men after discovering that her husband of 10 years has been seeing her younger half-sister, Sophia. During a wedding job, she gets stuck with dog-sitting Precious (who "looked kind of like a flying squirrel") and quickly gets so attached that she takes drastic measures to keep the dog. Can other kinds of attachment be far behind, as cute and easygoing Sean Ryan enters the picture? Sufficient comedy and romance keep readers entertained until the last page.
Publishers Weekly
Lipstick rules in this sunny romance tucked inside a Boston family's chain of beauty salons. Recently divorced makeup artist Bella Shaughnessy is going down swinging as she reacts to newcomer Sean Ryan and the gnawing possibility that developers are sabotaging her family's original shop. Cook's (Life's a Beach) ability to make families' foibles ring true—and funny—ensures a delightful read. Snap this one up and enjoy the makeup advice.
Teresa Jacobsen - Library Journal
Cook's fifth, about a family of beauticians, falls as flat as a badly layered mullet. The formulaic chick-lit elements are duly provided: family craziness, brand-name-dropping, egregious infidelity. Lucky Larry Shaughnessy gave Italian names to his five children and to the chain of beauty salons he runs in the Boston area. Why? Well, he's been an "Italiophile" ever since he spent his first honeymoon in Tuscany, and "how much money could you really charge at Salon de Seamus?" Daughter (and narrator) Bella recently lost her husband Craig to her half-sister Sophia. This makes work awkward, since all of Lucky's offspring, along with two of his ex-wives, are employed in the salons. Makeup artist and lipstick addict Bella meets rich, handsome Sean Ryan at a college admission fair where she's providing makeovers and he's test-marketing a "college application survival kit." They exchange wisecracks and snappy comebacks, but not, just yet, bodily fluids. Burned by bad relationships, both have commitment issues. Among the other developments: Bella, assigned to prettify a bridal party, dognaps the bride's neglected tiny terrier, dyes and crops the dog's fur and renames her Cannoli. There are a few funny bits, as when the Shaughnessys, including gay stylist Mario and his spouse Todd, perform a hair intervention to force Lucky to give up his Donald Trump coiffure. But the climactic ensemble scene in Atlanta, where the family congregates for a nephew's wedding, is not the madcap laugh-fest it labors to be. Nor is eminently self-satisfied Bella the sort of wryly self-deprecating protagonist the genre requires. Intense beauty-product placement may be this novel's onlyselling point.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Summer Blowout:
1. Summer Blowout, while not a fount for heavy philosophical discussion, can still yield up some good questions about family, loyalty, trust, and love. So start with Bella's family—what did you find funny about them...or irritating. A fun family to be a part of? Any comparisons to your own family? Family businesses...good idea?
2. Then, of course, there's Bella's sister Sophia. What a b.... um, back-stabber, dating Bella's ex-husband. Do sisters (even half-sisters...why is that important in the story do you think?) really DO that?
3. Talk the about the irony of Bella as a make-up artist, skilled at covering up flaws, bruises, dark spots...etc. How does this apply to her own life? Then, of course, there's the irony of all of Bella's wedding jobs.
4. Sean...see it coming? Predictable?
5. Of course, Blowout is about a woman who surmounts an emotional trauma, changing her life to achieve happiness and fulfillment. A realistic picture of what happens to women (or men) after suffering losses? Is it possible in real life to put all that pain behind us and forge a new life? Or is this the stuff of romance novels, movies, and dreams?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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