A moving and off-beat story of unlikely friendship, the cost of ambition, and what happens when the things you've always run away from show up on your doorstep unannounced, from a writer of Arrested Development.
From the outside, Maggie Rowe appears to live on easy street. Her well-appointed home is in a fashionable Los Angeles neighborhood. She has a kind and successful husband who makes her laugh. She celebrates the accomplishments of friends and acquaintances, is widely regarded as "nice," and after years of struggle, is finally making a name for herself in Hollywood. But the successful, confident, and gracious face she presents to the outside world can often feel like a deception to Maggie, who's long grappled with mental illness and feelings of inadequacy.
Enter Joanna Hergert, an autistic middle-aged woman living with her elderly mother in subsidised housing. When Maggie's husband, Jim, strikes up an acquaintance with Joanna and her mother outside a local restaurant one afternoon, Maggie is quick to befriend the pair—despite Joanna's not-at-all subtle romantic fixation on Jim—prompted, in part, by a less-than-admirable desire to be seen as generous. However, what starts as a charity project, soon blossoms into a complicated, intimate, and beautiful lifelong friendship that will challenge Maggie to confront many of the things she's tried to avoid about herself, her privilege, and the trade-offs she's made to live life on her own terms.
Engrossing, heart-breaking, moving, and at times very funny, Easy Street is part midlife coming-of-age, part buddy comedy about an unlikely pair of women, and part dramedy about embracing an openness of spirit, the strength of the families we fashion, finding peace with the choices we make, and, above all, learning to be compassionate with ourselves.
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“If you’ve ever gotten in over your head trying to be a good person, get ready to wince, laugh, and scream. A great read.”
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Kirkus Reviews (starred review)