What do you think?
Rate this book
Don't Be a Stranger
A mesmerizing new novel from the author of the story of a woman swept into a love affair at mid-lifeIvy Cooper is 52 years old when Ansel Fleming first walks into her life. Twenty years her junior, a musician newly released from prison on a minor drug charge, Ansel’s beguiling good looks and quiet intensity instantly seduce her. Despite the gulf between their ages and experience the physical chemistry between them is overpowering, and over the heady weeks and months that follow Ivy finds her life bifurcated by his On the surface she is a responsible mother, managing the demands of friends, an ex-husband, home; but emotionally, psychologically, sexually, she is consumed by desire and increasingly alive only in the stolen moments-out-of -time, with Ansel in her bed.In spellbinding prose, Susan Minot has crafted a luminous novel about erotic obsession, and the hunger for intimacy, communication, oblivion. Don't Be a Stranger is a gripping, sensual, and provocative work from one of the most remarkable voices in contemporary fiction.
- GenresFiction
320 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication October 15, 2024
About the author
Susan Minot
28 books274 followersSusan Minot is an award-winning novelist and short story writer whose books include Monkeys, Folly, Lust & Other Stories, and Evening, which was adapted into the feature film of the same name starring Meryl Streep. Minot was born in Boston and raised in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, attended Brown University, and received her MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. She currently lives with her daughter in both New York City and an island off the coast of Maine.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 24, 2024
3.5 Stars
This was an interesting character study of a woman in her early fifties with a grammar school-aged son, a divorcee living in New York City. She had not been with a man in years, since leaving her ex-husband- until she was set up with a brooding musician almost twenty years younger. This ignites an obsession with this man that accounts for a major struggle in the book. There are sudden, random meetups for sexual gratification that account for the meat of the relationship. Ivy's common sense is compromised as she juggles trying her best to be a good mom, maintaining her writing career, while wanting more of this mysterious and self-contained man.
I was riveted by Ivy's encounters with Ansel, for the fervent intensity of their carnal appetites, while Ivy struggled to draw out Ansel's feelings and perceptions. I grew impatient watching Ivy's tortured psyche dealing with this man as he kept her at a close tether physically, but distant from any measurable depth of human feeling. It was kind of like a circular argument without end, and it made me nervous and angry that this was drawing energy from attention to her son- her priority. There were intermittent passages of prose as she navigated this whirlwind of emotions, a trope which I do not appreciate in writing as I enjoy more of a literal approach. The book could have been edited down more as a lot of the relationship felt repetitive.
Thank you to the publisher Knopf for providing an advance reader copy via NetGalley.
This was an interesting character study of a woman in her early fifties with a grammar school-aged son, a divorcee living in New York City. She had not been with a man in years, since leaving her ex-husband- until she was set up with a brooding musician almost twenty years younger. This ignites an obsession with this man that accounts for a major struggle in the book. There are sudden, random meetups for sexual gratification that account for the meat of the relationship. Ivy's common sense is compromised as she juggles trying her best to be a good mom, maintaining her writing career, while wanting more of this mysterious and self-contained man.
I was riveted by Ivy's encounters with Ansel, for the fervent intensity of their carnal appetites, while Ivy struggled to draw out Ansel's feelings and perceptions. I grew impatient watching Ivy's tortured psyche dealing with this man as he kept her at a close tether physically, but distant from any measurable depth of human feeling. It was kind of like a circular argument without end, and it made me nervous and angry that this was drawing energy from attention to her son- her priority. There were intermittent passages of prose as she navigated this whirlwind of emotions, a trope which I do not appreciate in writing as I enjoy more of a literal approach. The book could have been edited down more as a lot of the relationship felt repetitive.
Thank you to the publisher Knopf for providing an advance reader copy via NetGalley.
June 26, 2024
It interested me, the idea of a woman in her 50s being passionately fixated on a man in his 30s. Older women are never really considered sexual, and damnit, we are. Minot writes very good sentences and paragraphs, and I was really into this for a while. But I think this novel could have used some editing and paring down. She's a better writer than I was, but this wound up being a little like rereading my journals from the late '80s and early '90s. And it tortured me, a little, when the man was very clear about what he was looking for, and she kept opening her mouth and saying things that all added up to "but I want more."
July 30, 2024
It's been a decade since I've had the pleasure of reading new work by Susan Minot and I was very excited to see "Don't Be a Stranger" showcased in Net Galley. I've been familiar with the wildly talented Minot family and their multifaceted artistic talents (and just read sister Eliza Minots "In the Orchard" fairly recently -- it's just been released in paperback).
Susan Minot is a visual artist and painter as well. Her writing demonstrates an eye for detail that shines through in her setting descriptions and characters. Her language -- the emotions and passions put forth -- are vivid and fiercely relatable.
After reading the synopsis of this book (right up my alley) I hit request: a woman in her early 50s enters into a casual but passionate and increasingly addictive relationship with a handsome and mysterious musician seventeen years her junior. He has a history of jail time, issues with "trust" and other wounded traits that only make him more attractive and coveted. A quest and a challenge. It's not an uncommon story but in the hands of Susan Minot and her engaging and alluring use of language, I was increasingly drawn in as a reader. There were depictions of unrequited love, passion, guilt, shame, and deep want that nearly felt as if Minot was reading my mind from various points of my own life. That's incredible writing.
Ivy Cooper, the main character, is managing work as a self-employed writer who has already written a well-received contemporary novel and has been navigating the logistics of a divorce, being a single mother to Nicky, while also keeping up with friendships and day to day life in NYC. Her 9 year old son, Nicky, is still establishing his feelings since the divorce--with a mom in NY and a father in Virginia--and establishing his own independence and pushing boundaries. Nicky is apt to push Ivy away and voice his dissatisfaction toward her one moment and then seek his "Mumma" for wrestling and reassurance in the next. "Never had kindness seemed so precious" - becomes a lesson over the course of this novel. At times Ivy is bewildered by the fact that she is a mother at all and sincerely doubts her abilities and skills.
"You should be sure, Nicky said. You're a mother." A small man in a boy's body.
There are quotes from Rilke, Lao Tzu, Emerson, Rumi and other brilliant writers and thinkers throughout the book. Ivy seeks solutions within a variety of poetically described "rooms" in the fascinating third part of the book - a hero's journey, a mother's journey, a woman's journey to find herself. Of the greatest significance in this journey are these thoughts:
"Why did you have to have the wits scared out of you to feel sharp, to be content with being alive?"
"She was not aware of when she fell asleep; we never are."
I really enjoyed "Don't Be a Stranger" - the title itself took on multiple meanings as I read through it. I highly recommend it to all who enjoy the depth and messiness of human relationships and what it takes to walk through life and find gratitude. Thank you #NetGalley and #PenguinRandomHouse for the opportunity to read and review this novel which is due for publication on 10.15.2024.
Susan Minor is a gifted writer and terrific artist. This book made me grateful for the small things in life (which are, indeed, never small after all).
June 17, 2024
Thank you to Netgalley for an E-Arc of this in return for an honest review!
Somewhat did not finish this one, arriving at the halfway point I proceeded to skim the rest of the novel as it felt it was not building towards anything and was coming across quite dull and one-note. The writing shown here was not at all terrible in style, I thought it wasn’t bad at all and had a lot of potential to cultivate a peaceful but emotional novel, but the slow nature of the plot combined with the over-writing of a story not extremely interesting or exciting caused the novel to drag on and consequently drop my interest. The obsession with the main male love interest felt distant, and lackluster, him not having much of a personality or developed psyche, though I could see that was maybe purposeful so as to communicate an unwarranted desire from our main character, but in reality just caused a ceasing in interest to see where this relationship would go, which ended up being nowhere.
The main characters lore seemed contrived and could’ve been potentially very interesting but was briefly slotted in and very often overlooked in favor of this bland musician and her dull and repetitive daily life. I think some might enjoy this, those who favor quiet and slow storytelling, and a novel easy to follow as it doesn’t have a very intricate plot, but as for me, I found myself tempted to abandon it after 1/4 of the book and ultimately ended up not completely finishing it yet still having grasped completely the essence of the plot and vibe, as it could’ve been communicated in a much shorter length and with more nuance and intrigue in a quicker format.
Somewhat did not finish this one, arriving at the halfway point I proceeded to skim the rest of the novel as it felt it was not building towards anything and was coming across quite dull and one-note. The writing shown here was not at all terrible in style, I thought it wasn’t bad at all and had a lot of potential to cultivate a peaceful but emotional novel, but the slow nature of the plot combined with the over-writing of a story not extremely interesting or exciting caused the novel to drag on and consequently drop my interest. The obsession with the main male love interest felt distant, and lackluster, him not having much of a personality or developed psyche, though I could see that was maybe purposeful so as to communicate an unwarranted desire from our main character, but in reality just caused a ceasing in interest to see where this relationship would go, which ended up being nowhere.
The main characters lore seemed contrived and could’ve been potentially very interesting but was briefly slotted in and very often overlooked in favor of this bland musician and her dull and repetitive daily life. I think some might enjoy this, those who favor quiet and slow storytelling, and a novel easy to follow as it doesn’t have a very intricate plot, but as for me, I found myself tempted to abandon it after 1/4 of the book and ultimately ended up not completely finishing it yet still having grasped completely the essence of the plot and vibe, as it could’ve been communicated in a much shorter length and with more nuance and intrigue in a quicker format.
July 21, 2024
3.5
I spent way too much of this book trying to figure out when, exactly, it took place: there are multiple references to the war in Iraq, "Iraqi dust," etc, and to various social media sites, and also "earbuds," and then people are passing around physical CDs, and also the main character is able to live as a single mother in the West Village without seeming to really ever do any work — I was just so confused. "Who is the president??" is not a question that I want to be thinking about so obsessively while reading a book. (It's Obama.) Ultimately most of these details lined up in a way that made sense, but I think a copy editor needed to have cleared up some of them, and I think they're the symptom of a larger issue which is that the book feels slightly adrift in general.
We do learn that the main character, Ivy, bought her apartment years before with a book advance, but that doesn't really explain her financial situation in general despite Minot's repeated references to her worries about it. She's worried about taking a teaching job, for instance, because as a single mother she won't be able to be sure that her young son has someone to watch him — but the professor's teaching gig she gets is only a few hours a week. Most people simply cannot think this way. These are relatively small issues in the grand scheme of things but, again, they distracted me a lot.
There are some really wonderful things in the book, though, to be sure: on a sentence level the writing is beautiful, she writes desire in a very alive way, and I was especially moved and engaged by the relationship between Ivy and her son, which just felt so recognizable to me. The son, Nicky, just felt so much like a real little boy, not like the idealized children of so much of literature, although mostly he's pretty sweet. The central relationship, though, between Ivy and a hot younger musician who's recently come out of prison, drags on and on after a while. Initially, I found this set-up interesting, partly because of the age difference, partly because Minot writes sex and longing well. But it's clear the relationship can't be a real relationship, which the man is clear about from the start. While it's certainly realistic for one half of a casual fling to get too invested, and linger and pine for a long time, reading about the same emotions, and the two characters repeatedly getting into bed together with the same emotional result, is just not very interesting after a while.
I spent way too much of this book trying to figure out when, exactly, it took place: there are multiple references to the war in Iraq, "Iraqi dust," etc, and to various social media sites, and also "earbuds," and then people are passing around physical CDs, and also the main character is able to live as a single mother in the West Village without seeming to really ever do any work — I was just so confused. "Who is the president??" is not a question that I want to be thinking about so obsessively while reading a book. (It's Obama.) Ultimately most of these details lined up in a way that made sense, but I think a copy editor needed to have cleared up some of them, and I think they're the symptom of a larger issue which is that the book feels slightly adrift in general.
We do learn that the main character, Ivy, bought her apartment years before with a book advance, but that doesn't really explain her financial situation in general despite Minot's repeated references to her worries about it. She's worried about taking a teaching job, for instance, because as a single mother she won't be able to be sure that her young son has someone to watch him — but the professor's teaching gig she gets is only a few hours a week. Most people simply cannot think this way. These are relatively small issues in the grand scheme of things but, again, they distracted me a lot.
There are some really wonderful things in the book, though, to be sure: on a sentence level the writing is beautiful, she writes desire in a very alive way, and I was especially moved and engaged by the relationship between Ivy and her son, which just felt so recognizable to me. The son, Nicky, just felt so much like a real little boy, not like the idealized children of so much of literature, although mostly he's pretty sweet. The central relationship, though, between Ivy and a hot younger musician who's recently come out of prison, drags on and on after a while. Initially, I found this set-up interesting, partly because of the age difference, partly because Minot writes sex and longing well. But it's clear the relationship can't be a real relationship, which the man is clear about from the start. While it's certainly realistic for one half of a casual fling to get too invested, and linger and pine for a long time, reading about the same emotions, and the two characters repeatedly getting into bed together with the same emotional result, is just not very interesting after a while.
June 28, 2024
Ivy is a writer, mom, and in the aftermath of a tense divorce when she meets Ansel Fleming. Sparks fly, and Ivy enters into a passionate, thrilling affair. Soon however, Ivy’s feelings grow stronger and deeper, and she wants more from this relationship. Ansel is a very attractive man, but is blunt in his assertion that he does not want that.
There follows a long, sporadic succession of encounters initiated by Ivy, that leave her sexually fulfilled, but felling rejected by Ansel. She hesitates to verbalize her emotional needs, and feels like she is neglecting her son Nicky to obsess over Ansel. It takes years and counseling, plus a health crisis to finally shake Ivy loose from this unhealthy relationship.
There follows a long, sporadic succession of encounters initiated by Ivy, that leave her sexually fulfilled, but felling rejected by Ansel. She hesitates to verbalize her emotional needs, and feels like she is neglecting her son Nicky to obsess over Ansel. It takes years and counseling, plus a health crisis to finally shake Ivy loose from this unhealthy relationship.
August 7, 2024
Overall, not a bad book. The writing was decent and the plot mostly interesting. However, it was a slow read that I had to force myself to finish. I wanted to know the ending but it seemed to take forever to get there.
August 9, 2024
This was hard to follow at some parts. It was a beautifully written story, but the plot was a bit twisty and confusing. because there are no quotation marks, it made it more confusing. I enjoyed it, though, even though I wouldn’t have picked it up myself. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews