View from Mount Joy Book

This is my third Lorna Landvik book and probably the one I liked the most. I read Angry Housewives Eating Bon-bons because my dental hygentist told me I would love it. The Second one I read was Patty Janes House of Curl which I read because my mom wanted to know what I thought of it. I had pretty much decided to not ever read another Lorna Landvik when the book club I decided to join picked this as the first read. *sigh* I know - Poor me. :)

So this one is the story of Joe Andreson. We tune into his life when he is a mere seventeen years old and it's the 70's. Joe and his mom are forced to move to the Twin Cities from some random small town because Joe's dad died in a plane accident and they just can't make it where they are living anymore. They move to The Cities and Joe's mom gets a job at the school as a music teacher and Joe procedes to live the American Teenager Life. He joins the Hockey team and is elevated to star status in the school. He hangs with the art hippy. He gets blow jobs from his girlfriends best friend in the AV office. You know - typical stuff.

We follow his life through the struggling college years - these chapters drip with "What should I do with my life??? I don't know! But it has to be BIG.". He still works at his highschool job - at the local grocery store. The manager is a good friend and when his M.S. gets too debilitating Joe is there to help out. Good old Joe. His Manager friend dies and leaves Joe the store. He is working there feeling all restless when his hippy art friend from high school (Darva)shows up with baby in tow. They all live together and although they love each other they don't LOVE each other. We follow their lives together for a time and then Darva dies and Joe becomes Dad to Darva's baby Flora. He is sad for a few years and has some thoughts and does some stuff. Then the love of his life walks in the door. More stuff happens. People die and people make babies and get married.

Thankfully this book also had a contrast character in Kristi Casey - The blow job princess I mentioned a paragraph or two back. She is the only true complex character in the book and kept this from being a book one could liken to milk toast. Her motivations are mysterious and she is the only chaotic element in the book. She brings much needed tention and drama into this story.

The other things that sort of bugged me about this book (which sort of goes with the last paragraph/rant) is that Joe is such a feelings driven cry baby that I seriously wondered if he was going to come down with some sort of disease diagnosis at the end of the book. I have to wonder if a man reads this book what his thoughts would be on the character of Joe. Does he strike anyone as a woman's fantasy rather than a credible character?

All that aside I found the book to be an easy read and it wasn't nearly the chore I thought it would be when I committed myself to reading it. And the local references are always fun in a novel.