Love and Other Impossible Pursuits

New York: Doubleday, 2006. Second printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Stephanie Rausser (Author photograph) and Brian Di. [8], 340, [4] pages. Corner of pages 339/340 creased. Illustration on title page. Signed by the author sticker on front of the DJ. Signed by the author on the title page. Ayelet Waldman (born December 11, 1964) is an Israeli-American novelist and essayist. She has written seven mystery novels in the series The Mommy-Track Mysteries and four other novels. She has also written autobiographical essays about motherhood. Waldman spent three years working as a federal public defender and her fiction draws on her experience as a lawyer. Love and Other Impossible Pursuits is a novel by Israeli-American author Ayelet Waldman and released in 2006. A film adaptation of the novel has been made with Natalie Portman starring in the lead role. The film was directed by Don Roos and also starred Scott Cohen and Charlie Tahan. After a successful screening at the Toronto Film Festival, the movie received only low dollar distribution offers because of the subject matter. The financiers decided to recut the movie and ended up with the released version which was panned by critics and which was contrary to the vision of the filmmakers. With wry candor and tender humor, acclaimed novelist Ayelet Waldman has crafted a strikingly beautiful novel for our time, tackling the absurdities of modern life and reminding us why we love some people no matter what. For Emilia Greenleaf, life is by turns a comedy of errors and an emotional minefield. Yes, she's a Harvard Law grad who married her soul mate. Yes, they live in elegant comfort on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But with her one-and-only, Jack, came a stepson, a know-it-all preschooler named William who has become her number one responsibility every Wednesday afternoon. With William, Emilia encounters a number of impossible pursuits, such as the pursuit of cab drivers who speed away when they see William's industrial-strength car seat and the pursuit of lactose-free, strawberry-flavored, patisserie-quality cupcakes, despite the fact that William's allergy is a figment of his over-protective mother's imagination. As much as Emilia wants to find common ground with William, she becomes completely preoccupied when she loses her newborn daughter. After this, the sight of any child brings her to tears, and Wednesdays with William are almost impossible. When his unceasing questions turn to the baby's death, Emilia is at a total loss. Doesn't anyone understand that self-pity is a full-time job? Ironically, it is only through her blundering attempts to bond with William that she finally heals herself and learns what family really means.