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Firefly Lane, by Kristin Hannah
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From the New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . .
In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer's end they've become TullyandKate. Inseparable.
So begins Kristin Hannah's magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives.
From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness.
Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn't know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she'll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she'll envy her famous best friend. . . .
For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship---jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they've survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test.
Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone's Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it's the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It's about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you---and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you'll never forget . . . one you'll want to pass on to your best friend.
- Sales Rank: #3048 in Books
- Brand: St. Martin's Griffin
- Published on: 2009-01-06
- Released on: 2009-01-06
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.19" h x 1.40" w x 5.48" l, 1.01 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 528 pages
- Great product!
Amazon.com Review
A Conversation with Kristin Hannah
Amazon.com: Why did you choose Seattle as the backdrop for Firefly Lane? Is there something unique about growing up in the Northwest that helped you to define the kind of women Kate and Tully become?
Kristin Hannah: Quite simply, I chose Seattle as the backdrop for Firefly Lane because it's so much a part of who I am. I've lived in the Northwest for most of my life, and obviously, in all those years, I've seen this part of the country evolve from an undiscovered gem into the Emerald City. So many of the places from my youth are gone, or changed, or moved, and I guess I wanted to remember the physical reminders of those bygone days. And while Kate and Tully are absolutely Northwest girls, I like to think their story will speak to women who grew up in vastly different, more populated areas. After all, it's ultimately about friendship, and those seeds can be planted anywhere.
Amazon.com: While you were writing, at any point did you find yourself feeling more sympathetic to Kate or to Tully? How did you keep the weight of the plot balanced between them as their stories evolved?
KH: There's no way to avoid the truth that Kate is more than a little like me. Thus, I identified with her from the very beginning--she was the small town girl who had to get up in the pre-dawn hours to feed her horses, and read The Lord of the Rings during every family vacation, and felt lost in the first few months at the sprawling University of Washington. All of that was me, so naturally, the problem was not in feeling sympathetic toward Katie; it was much more about holding her at arm's length, seeing her not as an extension of myself, but as a completely fictional woman. Tully was a different story entirely. While many readers might be surprised by this, I really fell in love with Tully. In the final analysis, she's one of my favorite characters of all time. I know she's bold and selfish and myopic and ambitious to a fault, but she's also terribly broken, wounded by her parents, unable to believe in love, and ultimately very real. I think all of us know a "Tully" in our lives, and they bring a lot of drama...and a lot of fire and sparkle.
Amazon.com: You have a beautiful way of showing both the tension and tenderness between mothers and daughters. Was it a challenge to write Tully's painful history with her own mother, and later, the conflict that builds between Kate and her own daughter?
KH: Honestly, I believe that the mother-daughter relationship is magical, complex, potentially dangerous, profoundly powerful, and deeply transformative. To put it simply, all of us have this relationship, and in a very real way, "none of us comes out alive." We are all formed first as daughters and then tested as mothers. There's nothing like motherhood to make us reassess how we were as daughters. One of my favorite parts of Firefly Lane was the circle of Kate’s relationship with her mom. First we see her as an angry teen, slamming the door on her mother...and then later her own daughter does the same thing to her. There's a real symmetry in that, a truth that many of us have learned. I have often wished in the past few years that my mom were here to help me as I raised my own teenage son. As a girl, with my own mom, I thought I knew it all; now I know better. Somewhere, I know my mom is smiling.
Amazon.com: Throughout the novel, both Kate and Tully question the reliability of love. Is it that question that creates the rift between them and, ultimately, reunites them in friendship?
KH: You're right, they each do continually question the reliability of love. For Kate, it's a self-esteem issue. She absolutely believes in love--she's grown up surrounded by it--but she constantly questions Johnny's commitment to her. I always felt that was largely because she felt like a moon to Tully's bright and shining sun. For Tully, she honestly doesn’t believe that true romantic love exists, and for all of her overblown ambition and belief in herself, she has been wounded by her mother's repeated abandonment. The result is that she feels she's unlovable.
Amazon.com: Kate and Tully are each big personalities in their own way. Was it hard to create male characters who really understand them?
KH:The challenge with regard to male characters was not so much creating men who understood Kate and Tully, it was rather to create love stories that equaled the power and emotional intensity of the friendship. After all, the men in the story were important--Johnny particularly--but it was really a story about the women.
Amazon.com: When Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone first came out, many readers were shocked that a man could write such an intimate portrait of a woman. Do you think women are in fact the best writers of women's fiction? Would you ever consider writing a novel where men take center stage?
KH: One of the great things about being a writer is that we get the chance to inhabit the minds and souls of a variety of individuals. I really don't think male/female is the central question in terms of the viability of a voice and/or vision. We writers can "become" murderers, animals, psychopaths, vampires, lawyers, doctors, wizards, children. In short, our storytelling skills and character-building abilities are limited only by our own imaginations. Until recently, most of my novels--while female-centric in vision--were equally narrated by male characters, and one--Angel Falls—was primarily narrated by men. I didn't see the writing of that any different than anything else.
Amazon.com: Do you see yourself as a writer of romance or women's fiction? What do you see as the differences in these two genres--is one an evolution of the other, or is the label unimportant?
KH: I began as a romance author and moved into women's fiction about ten years ago. While many definitions abound, mine is this: romance is a subsection of the broad, all-inclusive women's commercial fiction market. Women's fiction in general is not an evolution of romance; much of women's fiction is completely unrelated to any romantic elements. However, it is true that many current commercial women's fiction authors began in romance.
Amazon.com:Many women read fictional romance to escape the stress of everyday life and find inspiration in a happy ending. Is there a primary experience that you hope your readers will have after reading Firefly Lane?
KH: I am a sucker for a happy ending myself. In fact, my husband and I often go round and round about movies in which I hate the ending and he loves it. He always says I'm only comfortable with happy ever after, but that's not true. What I want is an emotionally satisfying, organic ending. I want to be totally engaged until the last page, and I want to believe every moment up until I close the book. Sometimes I want to laugh, sometimes I want to cry, and sometimes I want to scream that it can’t really be over. (Harry Potter comes to mind on this one). The point is, I want to be moved deeply. That's what I look for in other books and what I hope to deliver in my own.
Just FYI, here are some of my favorite endings: Gone With the Wind, Middlemarch, Prince of Tides, An Inconvenient Wife, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, To Kill a Mockingbird, It, Shadow of the Wind. Some are happy, some are sad, some are bittersweet. All are memorable.
Amazon.com: If you could meet any writer, living or dead, who would it be, and what would you ask them?
KH: There are, of course, dozens of choices here, and I could certainly go through the classics and come up with many names and questions, but the truth is that I would love to sit down with Stephen King and listen to some rock and roll, and ask him how in the world he has stayed so good for so long.
From Publishers Weekly
Hannah (On Mystic Lake) goes a little too far into Lifetime movie territory in her latest, an epic exploration of the complicated terrain between best friends—one who chooses marriage and motherhood while the other opts for career and celebrity. The adventures of poor, ambitious Tully Hart and middle-class romantic Kate Mularkey begin in the 1970s, but don't really get moving until about halfway into the book, when Tully, who claws her way to the heights of broadcast journalism, discovers it's lonely at the top, and Katie, a stay-at-home Seattle housewife, forgets what it's like to be a rebellious teen. What holds the overlong narrative together is the appealing nature of Tully and Katie's devotion to one another even as they are repeatedly tested by jealousy and ambition. Katie's husband, Johnny, is smitten with Tully, and Tully, who is abandoned by her own booze-and-drug-addled mother, relishes the adoration from Katie's daughter, Marah. Hannah takes the easy way out with an over-the-top tear-jerker ending, though her upbeat message of the power of friendship and family will, for some readers, trump even the most contrived plot twists.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“Hannah's latest is a moving and realistic portrait of a complex and enduring friendship.” ―Booklist
“Not since Iris Dart's Beaches, twenty years ago, has there been a story of friendship that endures everything, from girlhood dramas to bitter betrayal, to be the touchstone in two women's lives. In Firefly Lane, Kristin Hannah creates the most poignant of reunions and an unforgettable story of loyalty and love” ―Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean
“A tearjerker that is sure to please the author's many fans.” ―Library Journal
“With perfect pitch, Kristin Hannah describes the tumult and energy of the 70s and 80s, and on a deeper level takes readers into the heart of a friendship between two women. Firefly Lane is masterful at the grand sweep and the fine detail.” ―Elin Hilderbrand, author of Barefoot
“This terrific buddy saga about two best girlfriends who survive all sorts of escapades and catastrophes will inevitably provoke comparisons with Iris Dart's 'Beaches,' but the story is all Hannah's own.” ―The Seattle Times
“No one writes more insightfully about women's friendships with all of their messy wonder, humor, pain and complexity like Kristin Hannah. She's a marvel.” ―Susan Elizabeth Phillips, author of Natural Born Charmer
Most helpful customer reviews
166 of 181 people found the following review helpful.
Highly Recommended & Perfect !! Keep the Hankies Handy
By Maudeen Wachsmith
I usually begin my reviews with a brief synopsis, but in the case of Firefly Lane, I want to get the important stuff out there first: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - Kristin Hannah is at the top of her game with this emotional three hanky read!
Just what is a friend? And what would you do for your best friend? What kind of sacrifices would you make? Many of us will never find this out. But some of us will. Some of us already know. Kristin Hannah shows us with this outstanding novel what friendship really is and how it can endure over the years. She shows us the power of friendship.
Now for the a few details - without revealing so much as to rob readers of discoveries they should make themselves. Kate Mularkey and Tully Hart meet when they are in junior high - both felt they were outsiders. Tully comes into Kate's life a low point. She is the most beautiful, classiest person she has ever met - and she has moved right across the street. But Tully has a secret, one she hides with a lie. Eventually Kate learns to trust Tully and they become best of friends with a friendship that lasts through college and as their lives take very different paths. But this doesn't mean everything is always easy between the two. And it doesn't mean that one isn't jealous of the other, but it does mean that they are there for one another. Which, as the story evolves, reveals itself in a powerful way.
Those who grew up in the 70s will love the references to the songs as the decades go by. Those who grew up in the Pacific Northwest will enjoy all the references to familiar events and locations that make everything come to life and lend an air of authenticity to the novel.
I have followed Kristin Hannah's writing career from the beginning. From its start in historical romance and a hero with the unusual name of Stone Man McKenna to a wonderful time-travel set in the San Juan Islands (Once In Every Life) to the gut-wrenchingly emotional If You Believe to her breakout novel On Mystic Lake and then several bestselling novels that have made her a favorite with readers everywhere. Now with Firefly Lane she has simply reached the summit of the mountain. Make yourself comfortable - set yourself by the fireplace, grab a cup (or two or three) of your favorite beverage, a box of tissues, and put your feet up. You'll be there for awhile because you won't want to put this book down once you've started. Oh - and you'll probably want to have your best friend's phone number handy for you'll want to phone her as soon as you finish.
103 of 124 people found the following review helpful.
Overly long Beaches redux
By Ange
I really wanted to enjoy this book - it has all the makings of a fine women's literature novel. But I just couldn't, for several reasons.
1. It's a "Beaches" redux.
Two lifelong friends, seperated by a life-changing dispute, reconnected by calamity. Honestly, if you've ever read Beaches, you'll recognize every single plotline. Barely suppressed jealousy over each character's life choices (the SAHM desires the glam lifestyle, the successful journalist yearns for the SAHM's love and security), second-choice love interest, excruciatingly painful reunion... I had the "been there, done that" feeling for much of the second half of the book.
2. Epic length.
Tully's rise to fame in NYC is covered in a few short chapters, followed by several excruciatingly long chapters detailing day-to-day life of a stay-at-home mom. Kate's daughter goes from 0 to 3 in a few chapters, while Tully's escapades with her English lover are related in great detail for several long chapters.
3. Product/era placement.
Several times throughout the novel, the author goes to great lengths to identify with the era, describing clothing, music (lyrics, too!), hairstyles, trends, you name it. One or two mentions would've sufficed, but really, who needs a decade-by-decade synopsis of popularity? Stirrup pants, Madonna songs, velour bathrobes, menthol cigarettes - the mood being initially set, the author might've better served just giving us a few fleetin reminders instead of a constant barrage of pop genre.
Again, I really wanted to like this story, but was so bogged down by the details that I found myself bored about halfway through. I thought I knew the "big thing" that separated Tully & Kate, and turned out to be wrong - the actual "big thing" that makes them not talk to each other is sad but not really earth-shattering - but, to be honest, by then I just didn't care. I wanted more depth of character. I wanted Kate to *want* her life choices, not just have a feeble idea of what she wanted. When Tully's character is told that she just wants too much, I was reminded of Bette Midler's mother's character in Beaches saying, "You just want too much." I never liked Johnny - seriously, guy, grow a pair - and, having been a volatile teenager myself, found Marah over the top.
The novel plays out like an overly-long Lifetime movie of the week, with a predictable ending and far too much exposition. By the time we see Kate's mom indulging in marijuana and claiming that's how she got through the turbulent teen years of her own daughter, I found myself wishing for the end. And, even though I've sobbed through my 5+ showings of Beaches over the years, there were no hankies on this one. You see the emotional blackmail coming, and that just takes something away from the entire story.
120 of 148 people found the following review helpful.
This Book Made Me Angry...Find Out Why
By Claudine Wolk
This book was NOT poorly written. I did finish the book with no problem. I actually got to a place in the book where I couldn't put it down. You would think that not wanting to put this book down would be a good thing. It wasn't. This book had me so angry that I had to keep reading. The more I read, the more angry I got. The ending made me so monumentally furious that I had to write my first bad review on Amazon. The book is full of so many gratuitous female stereotypical situations that I wanted to scream.
Whew! Ok, here's the review and you judge for yourself. Tully and Kate grew up in the seventies. Tully is cool. Kate is not. (stereotype #1) Tully's lives with her Grandmom because her mom is a hippie druggie/alcoholic (stereotype #2) who comes in and out of her life. Sometimes Tully's mom, when she shows up, takes Tully with her. One time when Tully's mom takes Tully with her, they end up across the street from Kate's family. Tully suffers a tragedy because she is so desperate for love and acceptance that she makes some bad decisions. (stereotype #3) Kate provides Tully with the affection that she needs and they become lifelong friends. (stereotype #4)
Here's the part where I couldn't put the book down. A guy enters the picture who adores Tully and who Tully doesn't have the time of day for. Meanwhile, Kate is crazy for the guy. You would think that Kristen Hannah would write smartly and sensitively about Kate, a character who has been established as the product of a strong mother and happy family, a character who is bright, intelligent and attractive. Thus, however, is not the case. Instead Hannah takes the reader down an unbelievable road. A road where Kate makes ridiculous, insecure, stereotypical decisions that the reader has to swallow, dare I say, choke through. (all Kate had to do is ask for help. Really. Who is kidding who here?) In the interest of not spoiling the whole story, let me just say that the reader is expected to believe that Kate stays in her marriage, her friendship, and her miserable out of control and depressing life and that in the end her self-absorbed, selfish, shallow-as-a-puddle friend, Tully ends up with everything. Spare me.
For the record, Tully's character was the most interesting while she was living with her grandmother and her character completely changes to a gal who has absolutely no redeeming qualities. Also, let me say that pandering to an audience for the sake of an ending is down-right criminal.
On the other hand, writing a book that evinces so much emotion is an accomplishment all by itself, it's true. I have been thinking about this book since I finished it. My advice to the author - use that emotion to write something a bit deeper and more realistic next time, Kate deserves so much better.
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