Alternate Endings Wins STARRED BlueInk Review

ALTERNATE ENDINGS just won this STARRED review from BlueInk Review --

N.E. Lasater’s insightful novel Alternate Endings revolves around a middle-aged woman facing personal and professional challenges.

Calyce Tate, divorced and in her 50s, struggles with meeting family demands while working as a high school English teacher in Washington, D.C. At home, she cleans up for her adult son whom she still subsidizes and allows to live with her. Lacking supportive siblings, she alone tends to her aging mother, who moves in despite their strained relationship. At work, she insists on the primacy of grammar over content in her student’s writing, to the consternation of her class and colleagues.

This strict adherence to rules echoes her own discipline of putting others’ needs first. Although she once dreamed of becoming a writer, she now finds that daily life has vanquished her creativity and concedes, “Grammar I know but imagination eludes me.” When her promotion to department chair appears stymied, she reaches a point amidst increasing demands from her son and mother that tests her limits.

Lasater writes observantly (“1974 fluorescent kitchens whose arched-faced cabinets held crock-pots they still used”) and peppers the text with literary allusions that enrich the story. “There’s no book where I’m the female Odysseus,” Calyce laments. Calyce’s own name references Greek mythology, as Lasater later explains. Although generous in spirit, Calyce is flawed by her own hubris, which makes her more relatable; she’s every woman, not an immortal hero.

Lasater underscores this point by cleverly interspersing a parallel story throughout the book whose protagonist confronts similar dilemmas. As the central plot builds to an exciting climax, this structural device adds another dimension to the narrative and encourages reflection on societal norms and one’s own life choices.

Of particular interest to women, Alternate Endings will appeal to fans of literary fiction and resonate with those familiar with issues facing the “Sandwich Generation.” Such readers will savor this ambitious, highly engaging account of a strong older woman on a journey of self- discovery and empowerment.

Alternate Endings Wins Five Stars

BOOK REVIEW

Reviewed by Gisela Dixon for Readers’ Favorite  -- FIVE STARS

Alternate Endings by N.E. Lasater is a fiction novel set around an average woman’s life. The beauty of Alternate Endings lies in the fact that, although it is the story of an ordinary woman set in contemporary times, it is at the same time the story of women from time immemorial who, when faced with choices, are conditioned to put others first. Alternate Endings starts off with an introduction to Calyce, a woman trying to juggle life with multiple responsibilities. We also meet Catherine in bits and pieces throughout the book, who is a woman in similar circumstances in life. Both of these women have elderly mothers who need to be cared for and are their responsibility in a certain sense. At the same time, we also learn about Calyce’s son who is in need of support from her too. How Calyce and Catherine cope with their lives with the daily round of chores, responsibilities, caring for others, and how and if they make time for themselves form the plot of the novel.

Alternate Endings is a very thought-provoking book. The idea of women being meant to exist first and foremost to nurture and take care of others is the state of society throughout the world even today. This is true, even in the most socially so-called progressive or developed nations of the world. It is almost unthinkable to think of a woman pursuing her own dreams and ambitions unapologetically and without judgement from others in the same way men have enjoyed this privilege. Women who follow their own off-beat path are still condemned and judged, unlike men. Calyce’s life path and decisions show women that it is their right to live life as they see fit and, hopefully, a book like this helps to create awareness in society to be non-judgmental. Good writing and a great plot make this a very worthwhile read.

Everywoman

So I was writing in a library when Calyce Tate appeared.  She stood on my right, a foot from my shoulder with her arms crossed, staring down at me with her head cocked like a parrot.  You know the look.  That one-eyed thing your mom did when she knew you were lying to her when you said you were studying but you weren’t.

Her foot was tapping.  I couldn’t see it but I felt it somehow.  Maybe the rhythm made that one beady eye dance.  Calyce (“pronounced like Alice with a C,” she told me that first day) was impatient for me to begin telling her story.

Instantly I had two thoughts:  one, so this is how it happens.  Your lead character materializes out of nowhere fully formed and attitudinal and you’re reduced to being an amanuensis unforgivably delaying.

And two, she’s black, and I’m not.  How will I do this?

“Me?” I asked her, pointing to myself like a kid being called on in class.

“You,” her parrot face told me.

But then it became the story of Alternate Endings and as it arrived, I realized that it was a tale about women, all women of a certain age.  It's universal.  Calyce was an Everywoman.  Not "a black Everywoman," not some subcategory.  And I realized that I was an Everywriter, just as Shonda Rhimes is an Everywriter. Calyce Tate is my Meredith Grey.  Respect for the character and her story is all it takes.

By appearing to me that day in the library, Calyce took me to a place I had never been and gave me a pen and told me to get it all down.  That was all that mattered. 

How Calyce Tate Found Me

“How did you come up with Calyce Tate?” people ask me about the protagonist in my new novel, Alternate Endings.  “Is she someone you know?"

The answer is that Calyce came to me at a pubic library near my home, where I was sitting alone at a small table one day.  I looked up and there was, standing next to me, her left hip to my right shoulder.  Then, when she knew she had my attention, she crossed her arms tightly, bringing them high on her chest, and made big eyes at me, staring down.  You know those eyes, the ones that mothers make to rebellious children.

I couldn’t see her foot or hear it but I knew it was tapping.  Calyce was waiting for me to begin, and she had run out of patience.

She arrived full-blown.  Corporeal, yet out of my imagination, breathing and opinionating silently, waiting for me to give her voice and timbre and words.  Calyce was so complete that her story had already been lived.  All I had to do was write it down.

I’ve heard about this happening to other novelists, where characters appear not as newborn ideas but as adults in flesh and bone.  I’ve thought these anecdotes were made up, but when Calyce Tate appeared to me for the first time, she was as real as my next door neighbor.  I also knew, without her telling me, that her name was pronounced Cal-lisse, like Alice with a hard C.  That’s how entire she already was.

The third installment of Alternate Endings is posted now, here.  I can’t wait to hear more of your comments.

Great Response To Alternate Endings

The second installment of Alternate Endings is available here. The whole book to date is also here in case you missed the first week's installment.

The response to Alternate Endings has been tremendous, with readers both in the United States and foreign countries. Thanks to everyone making comments. Writing is a solitary and whiskey-filled endeavor, and it’s always good to hear in detail from real, live people about how the work is being received. Please keep telling me.

I’m happy to say that I’ve been asked to make the whole book available immediately for purchase. Great idea! My mortgage thanks you. I will provide the links as soon as they’re up.

Happy reading.     

Read Alternate Endings Here

I asked and everyone told me -- no loving woman would ever choose herself, not when her adult son and her elderly mother both need her.  Every woman I talked with about Calyce Tate, the lead character in my new novel, told me adamantly that Calyce would sacrifice herself every time for her family.  They all said that good women are The Giving Tree until they are stumps.  Any story offering the possibility of an alternate ending for a loving wife and mother is not only wrong, and implausible, and selfish -- but treason.

Forget the story... even my question made women angry.

I invite you to read the first installment of Alternate Endings and tell me if you agree.  Here’s the link.

Alternate Endings Is Coming Soon

Later this month, I’ll post the first installment of Alternate Endings right here on my website.  It’s a story about a woman who makes a remarkable choice.  It may surprise you.  I can’t wait to hear what you think!  Please check back very soon.