Is This Tomorrow: A Novel

A good read. Reading about racial and religious bias in the 50's was an eye opener.The story is well written and I found myself very involved with the different characters especially Ava. I found the whole story very evocative and was kept guessing what had happened to young Jimmy right to the end.

A decent read, the author has potential. With some tightening up on errors and flaws it could be a five star novel. A good story line and interesting plot. However, I'm afraid the author doesn't quite reach down deep enough to flesh out real live characters. The voices sound too much alike, there is no distinction. I would have thought this was an early draft of a novel, certainly one without crucial edits, prior to publication. Anachronisms like, "We're not on the same page," and other such lines were not around in 1956. Many of her metaphors come off as juvenile and unbelievable from an adult character. The leading questions from the "teacher" at the end of the book sound like questions for an 8th grade class, they should not be included for the general audience. I did enjoy the story, but wish there were more finesse in the editing. And the ending? Not satisfying. At the very least ditch the last sentence, it serves no purpose. I read the author's justification for why she leaves her stories hanging, and the fill-in-the-blank, make up your own ending, needs a much stronger character development to be believable for the reader.

Why do we read? For love, families, relationships, heartbreak, historical lessons, feeling as if we've been there too? IS THIS TOMORROW by Caroline Leavitt masterfully and powerfully takes us to a world that never was even though it is entrenched in our common mythology. Ava moves her son, Lewis, to the suburbs in the 1950s. She rents a house in a "perfect" neighborhood to provide him with safety and friends. The neighborhood teems with children. But Ava is immediately an outsider: she's too pretty, she has curves, the husbands dance too closely with her, she has a job outside the home because she is a single DIVORCED parent. There is a reason DANGER and DIVORCE both start with D. Now add that she's (don't say it too loud), um, Jewish. Her son Lewis is a loner because Ava is his mother, because he's too smart, and his teachers wish he wouldn't ask so many questions. Like Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, he and Ava are scolded for his reading too well in the early grades. Lewis and his mom make friends with the kids, Rose and Jimmy, from across the street. Then one day Jimmy disappears. The neighborhood draws together at first to find the culprit,to destroy the danger. Then they drift apart in hopelessness and change. But people still look at Ava funny, as if she brought this evil down upon them. Decades pass. We learn more about the hopes and dreams of Ava, Rose, Lewis. We are led to reconsider how Jimmy disappeared as new clues emerge. But at the heart of the story, we want to see how and if Ava, Lewis, and Rose can make happiness and peace in an imperfect world called reality. There is no perfect place. Life is a rocky road. IS THIS TOMORROW revisits the iconic "peaceful" fifties and the turbulent sixties with love and an eye toward truth. Leavitt asks her reader to take off those rose-colored glasses about the "old days" to see what life was like behind the white picket fences. Ozzie and Harriet, the Cleavers, and Father Knows Best stereotyped the American household on television. Leavitt goes beyond pie in the sky to give us a taste of bitter with the sweet.

Caroline Leavitt produces another bittersweet beautiful story pondering issues of family, friends, certainty, love and death. She moves seamlessly between past and present and makes her reader muse about the future of her characters. The title is incredibly appropriate and I won't give away its surprising genesis which is revealed about 2/3 of the way through the story and resonates beautifully with her themes. While I don't want to restate the plot of the book - other reviewers have already done that - I do want to say that I don't think Leavitt has ever created a character that I can't believe in or relate to. Even the minor players are multidimensional and evoke empathy from the reader. Like Pictures of You and many of her other books, this is not a book you can pick up and leaf through. You have to sit back and give yourself time to really enjoy the prose and allow the story to wash over you. The prose is so rich and beautiful. It is to be savored. Leavitt's choice to set the story in the 1950s and 1960s is also very interesting. She has obviously done an amazing amount of research into the periods she is writing about and brings them to life on the page in a thoughtful and often whimsical manner. The idea of time, and how time changes societies and relationships, is very prominent throughout the novel and also reflects back to the title. What can we guess about our tomorrows from our present situations? I can't recommend this book highly enough. Fans of Leavitt's work won't be disappointed and for those who haven't read her work, pick up a copy of this book and hopefully many of her others. She's a unique writer in her ability to weave a mystery story in a beautifully rendered historical period while making us care about her characters and their futures all at the same time.

I've had the pleasure of interviewing this author, so when IS THIS TOMORROW came out, I couldn't wait to read it. Most of the time, I stood in the kitchen, afraid to move, as I did not want to waste a moment away from this novel. From the beginning, Leavitt gets it right by pulling us in to the story through her deft character portrayals. It's the 50's and Ava Lark is not your typical suburban mom. She is not afraid to be beautiful and independent. She is a single mom living amidst a sea of families who are nothing - and I do mean nothing - like her. But this is only part of the draw of this story. A child goes missing but although there is a struggle for the neighborhood to continue on, this is exactly what Leavitt shows us they do. People keep living even when tragedy strikes. And this is where Leavitt is superb! She brings us inside the skin of Ava and Lewis and Rose and Jimmy, so we feel their pain and cheer for them when we see them stepping out trying to fix things even when they seem unfixable. Unlike so many novels, this is a story that will stay with you. I still can't get the image out of my mind of the child gone missing. The resolution may surprise you but because we trust Leavitt from page one as a writer to be fair, we accept the ending. The seamless storytelling will keep you standing but feel free to find a cozy corner to sit and relish the read. Julie Maloney, Women Reading Aloud