A Fortunate Age by Joanna Smith Rakoff

Book Review by Bess Newman

Joanna Smith Rakoff’s debut novel, A Fortunate Age, tells the story of a group of friends from college who move to New York City together and find their life paths diverging and their friendships changing. The story of A Fortunate Age is closely tied to the time and place it portrays -- trendy New York City neighborhoods in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Pros

The story of intertwined friends and lovers is moving.

Cons

The number of characters and years covered by the novel make 'A Fortunate Age' an unfocused read.

Description

'A Fortunate Age' by Joanna Smith Rakoff was first published in April 2009.
Publisher: Scribner
416 Pages

Guide Review - 'A Fortunate Age' by Joanna Smith Rakoff - Book Review

A Fortunate Age opens with a wedding and ends with a funeral. In between the two events, Joanna Smith Rakoff’s novel follows the lives, careers and loves of a group of friends from Oberlin College who moved to New York City after graduation. Rakoff’s novel is carefully filled with precise details about the locations of the apartments and restaurants and bars they frequent; these details lend authenticity to the story but occasionally distract from the narrative thrust of the book. Similarly, with no single character as the focus of the story, A Fortunate Age suffers at times from a lack of focus that prevents the reader from getting too emotionally involved with the story.

These criticisms, though, are only possible to make because Rakoff’s novel is well-written, interesting and moving. The "Acknowledgments" section notes that the author fashioned her debut novel after Mary McCarthy’s The Group; it’s possible the period details and wide net of characters are part of this homage.

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