Reviews
The Court of Common Pleas More about this title
"In this finely mapped novel, Alexandra Marshall tracks the twists and turns taken by [Audrey and Gregory Brennan] when they confront unexpected tragedy and opportunity. With its graceful, frequent changes in point of view, the book possesses unusual integrity; all the well-drawn characters have their say, and the resulting story resists easy labeling. The Court of Common Pleas is a precise travelogue through territory that's notoriously difficult to chart—the ways intelligent people navigate life's unexpected detours and draw on their shared history to make sense of it all." — Kimberly B. Marlowe, The New York Times Book Review
"In The Court of Common Pleas the novelist Alexandra Marshall gives us a sensitive portrait of a contented marriage suddenly in crisis as, without warning, a husband and wife—both mature, reasonable, loving people who have walked through life side by side—realize that they have arrived in different places. ...With tact and sympathy tempering her authorial tough-mindedness, Marshall creates a cast of realistically flawed characters caught up in a realistically ambiguous story. Our last glimpse of the Brennans is at a moment of carefully negotiated equilibrium, not to be confused with the pat happy ending a less honest novelist would have tossed our way after making us care so much about these people." — Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe
"With an unusual writing style that darts in and out of her characters' private thoughts like a shuttle in the hands of a master weaver, Alexandra Marshall has written a fine and moving narrative of a good marriage about to unravel in the throes of a midlife crisis. The Court of Common Pleas is a novel of unusual warmth and humanity." — Anita Shreve
"Once again, Alexandra Marshall practices her specialty—the diagnosis of contemporary marriage—and she makes us care about this husband and wife, and about their problem that serves as a lens through which we see how to unravel, not cut, the knottedness of middle-aged love. The wisdom here is useful, the prose is lithe, and the story is irresistible." — Frederick Busch
"The Court of Common Pleas is a vivid dispatch from the guerilla war called marriage, the combat zone where the outcome is ever in doubt. A fine, vibrant novel." — Ward Just
Still Waters More about this title
"Marshall's prose is elegant and vibrant and fresh. ... The sentences gleam like crystal." — Lee Grove, Boston Magazine
"Alexandra Marshall's account of her year-long observation of a New England beaver pond shows that those waters are anything but still. The pond and its environs brim with life as does the affecting narrative written with a poet's feeling and a scientist's attention to detail. Not since Thoreau have experiences surrounding a Massachusetts pond been as worthy of our attention." — The Christian Science Monitor (Editor's Choice)
Gus in Bronze More about this title
"Marshall has the essential novelist's gift ... the creation of vivid characters... Gus in Bronze is a Love Story about grown-ups, written by somebody with a grown-up mind." — Katha Pollitt, The New York Times Book Review
"This is a most moving book, spare and taut, peopled with characters one cares about, dramatic and understated." — Charles H. Gold, Chicago Daily News
Tender Offer More about this title
"Eclectic, insightful observations and wry humor ..." — People Magazine
"Alexandra Marshall compresses a story as revealing and relevant as Ordinary People with insights which are fresh and imaginatively expressed." — Boston Herald
The Brass Bed More about this title
"Alexandra Marshall's new novel is full of everything I love about novels. It is one of the few books I have read in a long time that I can honestly say I didn't want to end, except for the fact that I was dying to know how it came out." — The Boston Globe
"A beautiful novel ...captivating, humorous and tender ...a joyous affirmation." — Newsday
Something Borrowed More about this title
"Marshall is that true rarity, a novelist full of wise observations, mordant wit and a fine comic sense. ... A mixture of rue and humor and wistful speculation that explores what the epigraph calls the "ache of marriage," Something Borrowed is a pleasure to read." — San Francisco Chronicle
"Marshall brilliantly anatomizes what Chaucer's Wife of Bath called the 'wo that is marriage,' ...[and] deftly provides her characters with options and opportunities to behave well." — Baltimore Sun
"A glorious portrait of marriage, divorce, and true love. Something Borrowed takes on the complex and fascinating web that is domestic life and gets it right every time." — Alice Hoffman
"This is a wonderful book, a beautiful work of fiction. It's funny, sexy, sad, and wise..." — Christopher Tilghman
"Finally, a book about grown-ups. Alexandra Marshall has a knowing eye for families—neither nuclear nor smoothly blended—who have been through the Cuisinart of divorce. Something Borrowed is a welcome album of mixed emotions at midlife." — Ellen Goodman