OLIVER'S STORY

by Erich Segal ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 7, 1977

What can you say about a 35-year-old classics professor who writes drivel for shekels? Say he's smart, maybe, but also say that he's probably not going to bring it off again. Not in Oliver's Story, an unequal sequel with all of the leaden, sadcute trappings of Love Story but without the hooks: no Brahmin-bluecollar conflict and nobody dies. Oliver's dead inside, of course, a N.Y. widower haunted by the memory of Jenny Cavilleri Barrett and hounded by Jenny's irrepressible, lovable, obnoxious father, Phil from Cranston, R.I. Phil wants Oliver to stop moping and live, but Oliver tells us he'd rather just immerse himself in his late-Sixties, ACLU-ish lawyering (""I try to make the government behave""), his undemanding shrink, and his jogging. Until. Until blonde-perfect Marcie Nash jogs right past him, challenges him to tennis at dawn, and distracts him from all those book-banning, draftcardburning cases. Marcie's tough-sweet like Jenny was, even calls Oliver ""you big romantic schmuck,"" but turns out to be too independent and ruthless--she's the Binnendale department store heiress-manager--for possessive, noble Oliver. Or is it only that Jenny's ghost can never be displaced? So it seems, as Oliver retreats into his father's Boston investment firm (""I get my rocks off on responsibility""), jogging along the Charles, gazing at Harvard, wondering ""what I would be if Jenny were alive."" Segal is sloppier than before, unable to resist anything dumb (""a Christmas pun, ho ho""), pseudo-clever (""a women's lib-stick blow""), or easy. Oliver may tell himself, ""Buddy, it's not the sophomore prom,"" but, for Segal, it's always the sophomore prom. Maybe this time the other sophomores won't show up to pay for his carnation.

Pub Date: March 7, 1977

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1977

Categories: FICTION