Susan Minot's Don't Be a Stranger is a penetrating, achingly honest novel of sexual attraction and self-discovery. In her early 50s, Ivy Cooper, a loving single mom to her son, Nicky, meets someone who upends her world and causes her to reflect on who she is and what she truly wants.
Ansel Fleming is a singer/songwriter and musician; Ivy is a writer. For him, songs come easily; for her, writing is a struggle. When Ansel asks her how she likes writing, Ivy thinks, "Writing filled up spaces she hadn't known were empty." But what she says is "she still didn't really think of herself as a writer, writing was just the thing she did." Minot uses no quotation marks, literally indicating on the page Ivy's ongoing struggle to decide how much of herself to reveal, and how much to keep hidden. As her obsession with Ansel grows, she sacrifices more of herself.
Their mutual friend Maira suggests that Ansel meet her and Ivy at Ivy's Greenwich Village apartment, and the three of them could then head to a dinner that other mutual friends are hosting in Brooklyn. Although Ivy does not often say what she's thinking, she notices everything. And when she observes Ansel that first night, "She saw something in him unusual, as if not touched by the usual things." This insight reverberates the more time she spends with Ansel. When Ansel plays one of his songs for Ivy, "[s]he thought of how music entered a person without your needing to think about it. Reading wasn't like that. You needed to give it all your attention." This is the ethereal presence Ansel occupies in her life. Ivy dispenses with the analytical and surrenders herself to the present moment. She longs to move through the world this way, but isn't sure she can.
Minot (Thirty Girls) creates a profoundly sympathetic heroine in Ivy, whose greatest priority is her son, eight-year-old Nicky. And two turning points come for Ivy when Nicky becomes very ill. Readers will root for Ivy both as she succumbs to her obsession with Ansel, and then as she tries to conquer it. The title is as much about meeting a stranger as it is about becoming one to yourself. Yet, in Minot's expert hands, the stranger inadvertently leads Ivy back to herself. The sexy scenes and piercing insights will have readers madly flipping the pages to see how this Ivy comes out. --Jennifer M. Brown, reviewer
Shelf Talker: Who is the stranger in Susan Minot's piercing, keenly observed novel of sexual obsession: Is it the man Ivy meets or is Ivy a stranger to herself?