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Romance
Title: Autumn Colors Author: Dawn Lajeunesse Rating:  Very Good!
Publisher: American Book Publishing Web Page: www.american-book.com Publisher's E-mail: dlajeunesse@frontiernet.net Reviewed by: M.K.Turner |
 
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Autumn Colors is the story of a woman who dwells overlong in the past and comes late to the realization that the bond that commits her to her first (dead) lover is in reality her innate inability to commit to anything real. We find Kerry Waite in her middle years as self centered and serving as she was in adolescence and it is off-putting, not only to her devoted husband, but to the reader as well, e.g., unable to have children, she forgets to mention this to her husband until after their marriage: "They had never discussed this. Why had it never occurred to her? He had a right to know before they were married. It had never come up, and it was a subject she had blocked from her life for years." So it's hard to warm up to Kerry Waite and, in the end, when she finally joins the human race it is hard to do much rejoicing. Maybe that is because she is really not a "bad" person, just a very incomplete one, and as a result, not very interesting. Here she is describing the trip to their new home as newlyweds: "they started out on the final leg to their new home and new life the next morning after a complimentary continental breakfast." When a motel complimentary continental breakfast is significant enough in one's life to be recorded and the inability to conceive goes unmentioned, you know there are dull times ahead.
Autumn Colors is competently written and some of the scenes and characters both ring true and have the vitality of invention. Actually, the whole book rings true as in memoir but, again as in memoir, that creative exuberance is often missing. It will be interesting to see what the author does next.
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