Midstream by Lynn Sloan

 

Polly Wainwright has drifted through her twenties and early thirties.  She once dreamed of making movies but has settled for a job as a picture editor. She moved from her life in New York back to Chicago when her mother was injured in a car crash and just stayed there.  Polly has a partner but he is a war correspondent and has been overseas covering the end of the Vietnam War and his letters are becoming more and more impersonal.  She has an apartment she likes and a routine that just a bit too comfortable.

Then Polly's world falls apart.  Her steady job is suddenly in jeopardy.  Her best friend is facing a serious illness.  She realizes that her boyfriend may not come home and resume their relationship.  What will she do with the rest of her life which is, she realizes, her responsibility to carve into what she wants?

This is a lovely book.  I felt like Polly was one of my best friends as I could relate so totally with her dreams and struggles.  When I was her age, I knew women who just drifted into a life that fit other people's expectations of what women should do and I knew women who took charge and made their lives what they had always wanted it to be.  The book was set in 1974 and this was the time when the feminist movement was strong and women thought about whether the way things had always been for women was going to be enough for them.  Polly is a character that will remain with readers long after the last page is read.  This book is recommended for readers of women's fiction.