The heroine of Lehrer's fourth novel (Out of Eden
, etc.) already has two personas—one as 47-year-old Michelle Banyon, chic wife of a successful Manhattan lawyer; the other as Daisy Strait, popular women's magazine columnist, consultant and public speaker who specializes in streamlining lives and closets—when she meets a man who makes her question who she really is. After literally knocking Wilson Collins off his feet (with her car) following a speaking engagement in Texas, Michelle surprises herself by falling in love. To Wilson, our heroine takes on a third persona (he calls her Mickey): sexual, feisty, needy, yet still fiercely independent. She also becomes a liar: Mickey can't bring herself to confess her true marital status. Michelle is painted as a good and moral person (though surprisingly untroubled by guilt), who agrees to marry Wilson rather than lose him. She gets into trouble when she tries to balance the competing demands of her long-term but often long-distance marriage to Steve and her more passionate relationship with Wilson in Texas, as well as her burgeoning career as Daisy, a woman who would never find herself in Michelle/Mickey's conundrum. Though the friendly, chatty narrator takes readers into her confidence with breezy ease, Lehrer's blithe answer to the novel's underlying question—is it really possible for a woman to have it all?—may strike many as unrealistic. (May)
FYI:
The author is married to Jim Lehrer and will embark on an 11-city author tour with him.
