BOOK REVIEW: "One Sunday Morning"

One Sunday Morning
By Amy Ephron
Copyright 2005
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Adult Fiction
1.5 Bookmarks

Hmm.....this is a tough one. This longer-than-a-short-story-but-shorter-than-a-novel seems to be a commentary on the social strictures of New York society during Prohibition. When a group of ladies happens to see someone they know in a compromising situation, they make immediate judgments which cause a series of assumptions that affect all of their lives to varying degrees.

When the young lady in question is sent away, the gossipy voices start to carry some weight.

The story has some nice imagery and some unique twists and turns but, frankly, I was never quite sure what the purpose of the story was. Perhaps a mini-lecture on avoiding the very appearance of evil, perhaps just a self-indulgant trip into another time.

I didn't really enjoy this novella. It was very short with not much attention paid to developing characters. There were many dialogues throughout the book that seemed to be required solely to tell the reader what was going on. While I certainly understand that method of getting a point across, it was so obvious that it became annoying.

I prefer clever short stories with witty endings and this one doesn't really fit in that category.