A Window Opens

When Nicholas discovers that he hasn’t made partner in his law firm, he quits, leaving the family facing an uncertain financial future. His wife Alice decides it’s time to get a full time job and give up the part time job that she loves and that allows her to spend plenty of time with her children. She gets a job with an innovative new company and feels that she is, at last, back on career track. The window of opportunity has opened and she plans to make the most of it. The excitement soon wanes, however, when the company takes a new direction, one Alice doesn’t feel comfortable with. That, along with her father’s waning health, puts a lot of stress on Alice and she discovers that there are more important things in life than a high powered job and the status and money it brings.
Early in this book I wondered how long it would hold my interest because I seemed to be reading about the uninspiring day to day details of a very ordinary person’s life. I kept waiting for something more dramatic to happen, but it didn’t. What kept me reading was the subtle underlying tension that built as the story progressed, something that only a highly skilful author could do in such an ordinary story. What makes the book worth reading is, in fact, its very ordinariness. Any woman with young children who has put her career on hold, or left it behind, and who secretly wonders what she could have done had she remained in the full time workforce will relate to this, as will anyone who has faced mortgage repayments on one income, and the insight in the book comes slowly but surely. The author never gives her opinion on Alice’s situation, it just becomes clear to the reader that when Alice makes the inevitable final decision, it is not only the obvious decision, but also the right one.
This is not an earth-shattering story, but it is a good one, and one that reaffirms motherhood as a position worthy of respect in our society. Well worth the read.
4.5 stars.

Nicholas, feeling he is going nowhere in his current job quits and decides to set up his own business. His wife, Alice, worried about future money problems applies for a full time job.
Initially Alice feels let down by Nicholas. She enjoyed her part time job and bringing up their three children. However when she finds a dream job and the freedom and importance that comes with it she starts to think maybe she really can have it all.

Egan’s “A Window Opens” is a story of women defined by their actions. The brands they wear, (brand naming plays an important roll in this story) the cars they drive, the restaurants they’re seen in and the spin class they attend. Behind it all is a woman trying to keep up, running from trains to airports, to homes with children already asleep, to school concerts and after school activities. Some women do this effortlessly and so it would seem to an outsider, did Alice. However Alice’s world was falling apart. Her husband was drinking too much and she somehow lost her best friend. Her father’s cancer had returned more aggressive than ever and she’d let her mother down when she needed her most. Something had to give!

Egan’s writing is emotional, meaningful and subtle but powerful. An ode to motherhood mothers everywhere, working or not, will resonate with Alice.

I really didn’t think this would be a “tissues required” read but yes, tissues required.

There were a lot of directions the story could have taken to sensationalise it and make it more dramatic but I was pleased that Egan stuck to a tamer plot making the story more realistic, almost like a memoir.

If you love bookish books with lots of book mentions this will delight you with over thirty mentions of other books throughout.

With my thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for my copy to read and review.