It is not something that I like to admit, but I completely missed the central plot point of Bobbie Ann Mason’s Dear Ann - that this entire novel is an imagining of an alternate life. It wasn’t until I started reading reviews for this historical fiction novel that I discovered that I overlooked a key detail of this book - that the story wasn’t “true” to the narrator Ann Workman’s actual life. Perhaps that is because the book moved rather slowly in the beginning, focusing on Ann’s ruminations as an older woman, and apparently contemplating on what her life might have been had she taken a different path. I guess I tuned some of this out.

So here is what I have been able to piece together about Dear Ann. Author Bobbie Ann Mason often wondered what her life might have been had she chosen one college over another. She wrote this idea into her character Ann, who also ponders about another life. Dear Ann is Ann’s “alternate life” - the one she might have had if she had gone to Stanford and immersed herself in the counterculture of the 1960s. It seems that the love interest at the center of the story - Jimmy - was the love of Ann’s life both in her fantasy and her actual life, but Dear Ann shows what their relationship might have been like on the other coast.

Dear Ann is a high concept novel that is not marketed as such. I am not typically so dense, but having it more strongly pointed out that this story was not Ann’s actual life would have increased my enjoyment of this book because I do tend to enjoy myself contemplating “what if?” Instead, I found myself kind of baffled and confused at the end that I missed the whole point of this book.

Concept aside, Dear Ann is a deep dive into the 1960s, exploring the music, drugs, war, and movements that raged through the latter half of this decade. Although sometimes vaguely written, Dear Ann is still an interesting portrait of a pivotal time gone by.

A long, vivid and tender alternative history of a novel, dovetailing an imagined other choice into the cooler one made and lived. Mason conjures an intelligent woman grappling with alienation, love, academe and self-discovery with great empathy. And the details of the period light up the narrative - the clothes, the music, the hair. This is a strong work that should have received more attention.

DEAR ANN by Bobbie Ann Mason is the latest novel from a well-known and respected writer whom George Saunders describes as "a strange and beautiful author." Our students sometimes read her novel In Country as part of a Junior Research project. This newest offering jumps around in time between the mid-1960s and 2017. The main character, Ann Workman, grew up in rural Kentucky and faced a choice for graduate school between Stanford University and a small East Coast college. Nearing the end of her life, she reflects on choices made, relationships formed, and once again, the impact of the Vietnam War. I did enjoy the reflective spirit of DEAR ANN, but found the third person narration to be a bit stilted. The letters (to and from Ann) helped to build empathy for the characters and added to the story. Honestly, though, I would tend to recommend titles like Youngson's Meet Me at the Museum or Haig's The Midnight Library first, but I am sure that Mason's many fans will enjoy this novel, too.

This book was a blast from the past. 1960's clothes, music, and drugs all ring true for the time involved. However, the story wa a little muddy about what actually happened. Were the characters really found in NY or did Ann really go to Stanford? However he it didn't really matter to the story--Jimmy was representative of many of the boys who went over to VietNam and Ann was typical of many of the girls left behind. This book was a fast but fun read for me as Ann was only a few years older than me at the time and I could idenify with many of the things she was going through. I don't know, however, if someone who has not lived through it would enjoy the book as much as me.

“I have often wondered what would have happened to me if I had gone to the West Coast after college instead of the East Coast…The question prompted this novel...” said Bobbie Ann Mason in the acknowledgements of Dear Ann, her latest novel.

The main character, Ann Workman, is looking back at her life when she decides to re-imagine it if she had chosen a different path from the one she chose. That different path has her going to graduate school at Stanford, smoking pot, dropping acid, and being in love. Her love interest appears to be the same boy she was in love with in her real life, Jimmy, an upper class boy from Chicago. Music and literature drive their day-to-day life while the Vietnam War overshadows their existence. This other-life Ann finds herself participating in anti-war demonstrations and visiting Haight-Ashbury.

For readers who grew up in the 1960s, an element of nostalgia comes into play as hits of the day are interwoven into the text as well as many of the works of literature that were popular in college courses at that time.

Bobbie Ann Mason’s memoir, Clear Springs, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Her other titles include In Country and Shiloh and Other Stories. She lives in her native state of Kentucky.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting September 29, 2020.

I would like to thank HarperCollins and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

This is a book that spoke to me. I’m in my 70’s and love to cruise. And I’ve been thinking about how one different action in my life could have changed where I am. That first boyfriend I think of him, too. Memories become more important as you get older and this book made me think about my life. The cover drew me in and I’m glad I opened the book and read it.

I'm conflicted about this book. While it mostly held my attention, I felt it dragged quite a bit. When I neared the end, I got angry because of a bit of a plot twist. By the very end, I both empathized with Ann but also wondered if she wasn't afflicted by mental illness of dementia! It's ultimately a slow-moving roller coaster of twists and turns and I can't decide if I liked the ride!

Artistic and intricately crafted, perhaps too much so. There is no denying the skill with which Mason writes. I just could not find anything to be genuinely interested in with this one. It never made its way out of the head space and into the heart space that the topics within it demand.

I read with pleasure Bobbie Ann Mason's early short story collection Shiloh and the remarkable novel Feather Crowns. After a decade a new novel arrived then a couple of story collections. I was surprised to find this ARF of a new novel and looked forward to catching up with an old friend. It was an interesting visit but I think we have grown apart. The look back to a possible (or not) past from the perspective of someone my age did not engage me but may well appeal to others. Mason is a fine writer and her grounding in the Kentucky of her early life bolsters the authenticity of this novel.

I think I didn't understand this book. I'm not sure why it was told as a flashback. I'm not sure why the flashback was (probably) an imagining of what might have happened had Ann gone to school at Stanford (during the '60s heyday in SF) rather than what did happen (I think she went to school in NY state?). The letters to Ann from her former teacher, mother, and boyfriend don't seem to really have anything to do with what was going on in the story.

The conversations between Ann and Jimmy were super pretentious and over the top. The friendships Ann had seemed superficial at best, nearly nonexistent at worst. And then....this never happened?

That's what I mean, I just didn't get the point of the whole book. I even read the reviews on Goodreads to see what I had missed and why I didn't grasp the meaning of the book. No luck there, either.

My thanks to Harper publishing and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ann, a graduate student, attempts to contemplate the road not taken, but her first love reappears in her imagined change of location. Poignant novel about first love, family, and choices.

From the vantage point of a woman in her 70's on a Caribbean cruise, Ann looks back on her life and ponders a big "What If..." If she had made a different choice about where to attend graduate school and gone to Stanford instead of a fictional college in Upstate New York, how would her life have been different? She plays with the impact the different setting would have had, even with the same lifelong friendships she did have. Mainly she hopes in her daydreaming she can imagine a different outcome of her romance with Jimmy, the love of her life. The counterculture of the California 60's is like a main character of this novel, and as someone of Ann's generation I found it an authentic and nostalgic trip with Ann down memory lane. The heartache of the Vietnam War and the decisions young men were forced to make was embodied in Jimmy and his friends. The ending, back on a luxury cruise ship in the present, served as an effective contrast to Ann's imagined and real life during the 60's.

In Country has always been one of my favorite books, so I was glad to see Dear Ann, and truly enjoyed it. I like the way it explores a character from two points of view -- older self looking back at younger self. So interesting to see the treatment of and expectations for women through the recent decades. Definitely recommend, particularly for readers who enjoy a literate, introspective story.

A totally immersive experience of a read; find yourself in the 1960’s in the midst of the Vietnam war. Ann was a likable character and I found myself engaged in her love story.

In this partly epistolary novel, Ann, originally from a farm in Kentucky, dreams of the sixties. She is on a cruise ship in 2017, in her golden years. She frames her true sixties in a more romantic California setting at Stanford, instead of reminiscing where she actually went to graduate school, a minor college in upstate New York. As a reader, I was not sure why the novel was written this way and was confused by it. I am still not sure whether she went to Stanford at all. She may have gone to a romantic poetry seminar, where she may have met some or all of her actual college friends, whom the ending makes it clear are real people.

She may also have met the love of her life at that one seminar, or maybe not. Jimmy was flaky and mentally abusive. I never actually got a bead on any of these characters, even Ann.

Anyway, Jimmy, after expressing a great deal of anti-war sentiment and (in Ann's imagination, maybe?) attending anti-war demonstrations, pulls a Rhett Butler on the road to Tara maneuver and joins up with the Lost Cause in Vietnam. It seems that Jimmy does this purely as a literary device, so that his letters can join those of Ann's weird old hippie college professor and Ann's mom down on the farm.

Ann does, or perhaps doesn't, give into pressure from various men to do things she doesn't want to do, including posing for photographs and doing LSD. The whole idea that Ann "lost her innocence" feels cliched and inauthentic. Ann is already popping speed when she arrives in California or, I suppose, her minor college in upstate New York, unless that part is also made up. She eventually declares that she is "done with male authority figures" and goes off by herself to garden. This part, I think, actually happens. The "real Ann" (senior citizen Ann on the cruise ship) sometimes intrudes into the California tale that she's telling herself, and in one of the weirdest interruptions she declares that Jimmy "isn't supposed to be there."

The whole novel just does not work on a fundamental level. If Ann is framing some California dreamin' into her actual life to make it more swingin' sixties, this needs to be explicitly spelled out or she needs to be shown early and often to be an unreliable narrator. Also, why should she bother? And who is Ann?