Susan Minot's Don't Be a Stranger is a penetrating, achingly honest novel of sexual attraction and self-discovery. In her early 50s, Ivy Cooper, a loving single mom to her son, meets someone who upends her world and causes her to reflect on who she is and what she truly wants.
Ansel Fleming is a singer/songwriter and musician; Ivy is a writer. For him, songs come easily; for her, writing is a struggle. When Ansel asks her how she likes writing, Ivy thinks, "Writing filled up spaces she hadn't known were empty." But what she says is "she still didn't really think of herself as a writer, writing was just the thing she did." Minot uses no quotation marks, literally indicating on the page Ivy's ongoing struggle to decide how much of herself to reveal, and how much to keep hidden. As her obsession with Ansel grows, she sacrifices more of herself. Ansel comes to occupy an ethereal presence in Ivy's life, and she dispenses with the analytical and surrenders herself to the present moment. She longs to move through the world this way, but isn't sure she can.
Minot (Thirty Girls) creates a profoundly sympathetic heroine in Ivy. Readers will root for Ivy both as she succumbs to her obsession with Ansel, and then as she tries to conquer it. The title is as much about meeting a stranger as it is about becoming one to yourself. Yet, in Minot's expert hands, the stranger inadvertently leads Ivy back to herself. The sexy scenes and piercing insights will have readers madly flipping the pages to see how this Ivy comes out. --Jennifer M. Brown, reviewer