Community Board: A Witty Literary Novel of Starting Over, Finding Your Voice, and Building Community
The New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics delivers a wise, timely, big-hearted novel of unplanned isolation and newly forged community.
Where does one go, you might ask, when the world falls apart? When the immutable facts of your life—the mundane, the trivial, the take-for-granted minutiae that once filled every second of every day—suddenly disappear? Where does one go in such dire and unexpected circumstances?
I went home, of course.
MURBRIDGE COMMUNITY MESSAGE BOARD
FREE: 500 cans of corn. Accidentally ordered them online. I really hate corn. Happy to help load.
REMINDER: use your own goddamn garbage can for your own goddamn pet waste. I’m looking at you Peter Luflin.
REMINDER: monthly Select Board meeting this Friday. Agenda items: 1) sludge removal; 2) upkeep of chime tower; 3) ice rink monitor thank you gift. Questions? Contact Hildegard Hyman, HHMurbridge@gmail.com
Darcy Clipper, prodigal daughter, nearly thirty, has returned home to Murbridge, Massachusetts, after her life takes an unwelcome left turn. Murbridge, Darcy is convinced, will welcome her home and provide a safe space in which she can nurse her wounds and harbor grudges, both real and imagined.
But Murbridge, like so much else Darcy thought to be fixed and immutable, has changed. And while Darcy’s first instinct might be to hole herself up in her childhood bedroom, subsisting on Chef Boy-R-Dee and canned chickpeas, it is human nature to do two things: seek out meaningful human connection and respond to anonymous internet postings. As Murbridge begins to take shape around Darcy, both online and in person, Darcy will consider the most fundamental of American questions: What can she ask of her community? And what does she owe it in return?
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Community Reviews
Such a fun read! This book touched on so many things and it pulled together so many different structures of text: emails, the community board. I didn't understand why Tara doesnt use quotations for the dialogue. That made reading a little clunky. But it was a compelling read.
You watch a 29 year old woman essentially go crazy and then pull herself up. The characters are so well developed and even the mention of different political topics weren't too eye-roll-worthy.
You watch a 29 year old woman essentially go crazy and then pull herself up. The characters are so well developed and even the mention of different political topics weren't too eye-roll-worthy.
I love a book with an unhinged, female, protagonist, and this one did not disappoint. It had a good plot line and I loved the offbeat humor sprinkle throughout. I found the ending to be surprisingly feel good and heartwarming, which isn’t always the case with books that have a central character who is completely going off the rails! Instead of a zany, weird, ending this ends on a really happy note, and it made me smile. I really liked this book a lot!