Julia Glass's second novel has a little bit of a lot of things. Gay people, straight people, politicians, cooks, children, adults, animals, city, desert. Any one of her characters could serve as the focus of a novel, but here, the central ones are Greenie and Alan, who are having serious marital problems and, against Alan's wishes, Greenie chooses to separate for a time, taking their obnoxiously precocious little boy with her. Shuttling between NYC and New Mexico, the action revolves around the decisions they make, but in my view, it's the ancillary characters who generate the most human interest, especially Saga, Walter, and Fenno. Luckily, Glass is a competent writer whose prose is a pleasure to read, whose understanding of human foibles is deep. Otherwise, such a talky story, low on action and high on thoughts and feelings, might degenerate into tedium. That's not the case, and I look forward to her next novel, in which I hope Saga and Walter play major roles.

Despite the comments of other reviewers I liked The Whole World Over just as much, if not more, than Three Junes. The prose was beautiful and the story unfolded in winding but engrossing manner. Having lived in NY and also in the west I was drawn to her descriptions of both locations. A beautiful read!

The Whole World Over goes all over the place and never quite delivers much of anything. The characters are hard to keep track of and when the story leads you back to them, you've forgotten who they were.
The end is extremely unsatisfying. It was as if Ms. Glass decided to hurry up and end things that she spent so long developing. We never find out what has become of a few main characters after the 9/11 tragedy. It was a lesson in frustration for me. I won't waste my time reading anything else she writes.

This was an enjoyable second novel by Julia Glass. It didn't quite tug on my heartstrings in the way that "The Three Junes" did. However, if I weren't making comparisons to Julia Glass' excellent first novel, I would have found "The Whole World Over" fully satisfying.

Three Junes left many readers asking for more (a lot more in some cases) and Julia Glass was apparently more than aware of the fact. Her second novel picks up some of the story lines from the first one but does so quite half-heartedly. What we get instead is the story of a cook who gets her chance in the West but as she has a family in New York, the novel oscillates between the West and the East Coast. Well, we get more... There are at least five more or less separate story-lines which cross every now and then making the reading somewhat difficult.
The result is far from satisfying. Fans of home-made pastry may find introduction of gay characters distracting, fans of gay novels may find the kitchen sink part rather slow. The book does not come together - too many story-lines do not form a coherent network. It does have better parts (final chapters about 9/11 and the following days stand out) but you have to soldier on for several chapters to get there and sometimes one starts asking for a cast of characters conveniently placed on the cover. If this is your holiday reading, make sure to have some backup in case you got lost completely in the story. However, it may be a perfect choice for an All Inclusive holiday, the descriptions of food and restaurants will certainly keep you hungry all the time.

Like an intricate pastry, The Whole World Over is comprised of layer after layer of rich, full text, beautifully put together and delicious to read. Our heroine of sorts is Greenie Duquette, a caterer extraordinaire who has a small business in Manhattan. Greenie is married to Alan, a not-too-sucessful psychotherapist, and together they have a precocious four-year-old son, George.

As the book opens, Greenie is feeling stronger and stronger stirrings of discontent, possibly with Alan, possibly with herself, certainly with the marriage--but never with George. So when she receives an improbable offer from the flamboyant governor of New Mexico to become part of his house cooking staff, she accepts, changing her life and the lives of everyone around her. It's a fascinating premise, but Greenie is not the only character.

We have Saga, whose brain damage from a freak accident has left her hostage to an appallingly nasty family; Walter, the gay owner of a trendy restaurant whose upscale partying ways belie a tender and lonely heart; Alan, whom we get to know in some detail; the lovely Scottish owner of a bookstore near Walter's restaurant; assorted characters in Manhattan and New Mexico, and last but certainly not least, little George, through whose eyes we often see the vagaries of the adults around him.

The denoument for the book is the events of 9/11, which intantly put everyone's small lives into perspective, and changes all of them, in large ways and small, forever. I have seldom read a more moving or intense account of that tragedy as told by the people who experienced the horror of that day as it was happening.

I highly recommend this beautifully written book; I'm so glad I read it.

I wasn't originally as in love with "Three Junes" as much of the world seemed to be -- part of me wonders cynically if its American Book Award wasn't due to it being a paean to New York City life in many ways -- but each time I've re-read it I've gotten more out of it, so I guess the award was legitimate. Vivid characters and situations, well-told.

But I can't imagine reading this book even one more time. It was light; that was the biggest point in its favor. Otherwise I thought the characters were mostly cardboard, and mostly unlikable, Greenie especially. I never warmed to her and by the end actually disliked her. There wasn't enough passion in her relationship with Charlie to make that come to life, and her problems seemed, as a friend of mine says, to be "those of a blond in a yacht" -- ie, not so huge. This is a problem of characterization.

The plot was also messy and too long. And while I do understand that people write to make sense of historical events, I find the leap to use 9/11 in books a bit tasteless. In this particular case it seemed extraneous, as if the book was running out of steam and the author felt it needed something to keep peoples' attention. 9/11 almost guarantees that, yes, but it was a bit soap-opera-ish -- as was the whole book.

So, a good enough airplane read. But not much more. I hope Julia can return to the sort of writing of "The Three Junes" with her next book.

I found "The Whole World Over" engrossing despite a few issues I have with it. Dialogue was always great. Glass manages the interweaving plots nicely, a few of the characters are well developed, and most of the rest are credible. Saga, the woman with cognitive problems caused by an accident, was an especially interesting character. The governor never becomes a caricature.

My major problem is that Glass skimps on development in the beginning. Walter, a man with great sexual experience, falls in love at first sight AND immediately wants a permanent relationship (OK, his putative lover was an acquaintance from the restaurant). Alan is depressed, presumably about his practice, yet, not withstanding the good relationship he and Greenie had, there is no communication and zero empathy on Greenie's part. Subsequently, Alan becomes a completely different person without any real catalyst, unless we are to assume that your beloved wife leaving you is a great antidote for depression. The material about Greenie's parents moves the plot along, but is not up to a writer of Glass' talents (following B. Case's insightful review, 9/29/07, it does provide another example of a familial relationship I suppose).

I've given a lot of thought to why Julia Glass' second novel, "The Whole World Over," has received so many lackluster reviews by avid fans of the author's first novel. Obviously, fans of "Three Junes" were looking forward to another novel much like the first. They wanted another detailed character study. They wanted to get to know another character as intimately as Fenno McCloud, the much-loved main character at the center of "Three Junes." What they got instead, was something entirely different.

"The Whole World Over" is a study about family. The novel has a wide assortment of main characters, each belonging to ever-widening and intersecting circles of family connections. The author deftly sculpts each character--but none have that breath of life that Glass was able to achieve with Fenno McCloud. How could she? There are just too many characters...and after all, that is not the purpose of this novel.

In this work, Glass delves deeply into the timeless question: "What does it take to make, or break, a family?" She gives us many families: a traditional family on the brink of a break-up; a hodge-podge family of friends, associates, and workers centered around a charismatic bachelor governor; a newly formed fragile group of three testing the possibilities of becoming a family; a father with one son, dealing with the possibility that he may have fathered another child who is totally unaware of his existence; a family that is shattered by how they deal with a mentally declining patriarch and a neurologically damaged cousin; and many more. Glass takes us on a journey through these families. You won't like all these characters, or their families, but each is fascinating and fundamentally unique. Each give us a view of family reality from another perspective.

In this book, not all the families have bonds of blood, and some of the people tied together by blood do not turn out to be real families at all. At the end of this novel, no one character, or one family, will stand out in your mind. Instead, you will be left with the author's all-important message seared into your heart: to make a family, all it takes is commitment and unconditional love. Without these, a family will shatter...or slowly dissolve.

And, by the way, Fenno McCloud and his New York friends make a heart-warming appearance in this novel...and yes, they are most certainly one of the good and healthy examples of families that populate this remarkable book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it highly. It may not be as magnificent a novel as "Three Junes," but it is still a powerfully-crafted and artful work of prose with an all-important message.

This being my first experience with Glass, I'm glad I didn't pick up the book in the library instead of grabbing the CD off the shelf, (based solely on its colorful cover). Otherwise, I know I would've never finished reading the book.

I enjoyed all the characters and their lives. Hearing the reader's various characters' voices on the CD brought them more to life for me than reading the book would have. I found Greenie to be sort of a dingaling, spoiled brat, and Alan, by nature, a grump who needed a career change. As much as I disliked Greenie, I never blamed her for leaving or having her fling. She simply did what many women yearn to do, but don't. I wish she would've stayed with Charlie and ditched Alan. George? Well, he's young. There's hope.

I especially enjoyed every aspect of Walter and find myself, occasionally, wondering how he and his Scottish beau are getting along, especially when I walk into a book store or nice restaurant. I hope Walter's new restaurant does well. And, I would suspect Greenie and Alan finally split. Often, when I walk under windy trees or see a litter of puppies, I think of Saga and speculate on how she and her uncle might be fairing in their new home.

Isn't that what an author wishes their book to do, no matter how it's written? So, overall, kudos to Glass. While giving a warning to others about its, often, difficult-to-follow flow, I recommend this book -- on CD.

As a writer myself, I'm, not surprisingly, a ferocious reader. I found this book to be an example of how to develop characters, but not how to write an easy to read novel. I agree with several of the comments in these reviews. It, definitely, jumped all over the place and was sometimes confusing. But, then again, perhaps the way it was written may have been purposeful, to represent...life.

My advice: Listen to the CD, don't read the book.

I was a huge fan of Three Junes and looked forward to this book. I was not disappointed. I don't like to compare - each book stands on it's own. Her characters are so engaging, her prose connects you with these people, you become a member of their community. Even if you don't like the character, you still want to know where they end up and why. There are a few loose ends that go nowhere but that is a minor criticism. Ms. Glass writes with wit, emotion, and the right amount of detail. And the cooking/food descriptions - I was hungry the entire time! Don't read this book if you are on a diet - but that would be the only reason NOT to read this book.

(also available as CD-rom)

Greenie Duquette is the wife of a New York City psychiatrist, the mother of a four-year-old son, and perhaps most importantly, the owner of Pastries by Miss Duquette and its pastry chef extraordinaire. Her business is doing well, her son enjoys pre-school and while she and her husband have their disagreements, things are generally fine. Until that is, her chief client and friend, the owner of Walter's Place, suggested to the governor of New Mexico that Greenie might just be the chef he needs at his Santa Fe governor's residence. Flattered by the governor's offer, Greenie decides to try it out for a few months. Although her husband is unable to leave his patients immediately, Greenie packs herself and her son and moves to New Mexico.

This is just the opening to Julia Glass's second novel. Glass takes the reader back and forth from the busy streets of Manhattan to the political world of the New Mexico governor's mansion and the wide-open spaces of his working ranch. In each of the settings, she peoples the book with interesting characters that are occasionally interconnected. For example, Greenie's friend Walter decides to let his nephew stay with him for the summer. The nephew meets the girl who walks his uncle's dog. She also works with a volunteer animal rescue group. In the same time frame, Greenie's husband happens to meet a disoriented young woman who also volunteers for the animal group. These two young women have only a passing knowledge of each other, yet the reader begins to sense connections between unrelated individuals.

The novel covers a relatively short time period--a little over a year, but the characters go through a variety of upheavals in their relationships. Old friends rediscover each other and new friendships develop. Some relationships fall apart while others are cemented together.

All in all, the book is immensely satisfying, particularly in its character development. I found only one thing disconcerting: a sudden shift to present tense near the end of the book. This, however, was not enough to prevent me from highly recommending the book.

Armchair Interviews agrees.

This is the first book I've read written by Julia Glass and although based on the reviews here I would normally be tempted to pick up her other book, I certainly wouldn't based on my experience with this book.

I did finish the book -- I was on vacation and it was the book I brought -- and I kept waiting for it to sweep me up, but it never did. Although I thought the writing was well done and most of the characters I found interesting, I never really bonded with any of them. I can always tell if I've found a good book if I want the story to continue or miss the characters by the time I've finished it. But when I finished this book I really had no desire to ever meet these characters again, except perhaps Walter who I found to be the most sympathetic and well-drawn.

My main objection to this book is that I was insulted by the not so subtle bashing of anyone to the Right of San Francisco both in terms of the characters in the book (Both Werner and the Governer are complete caricatures)and the narrative voice which wreaks of the same holier than thou liberalism that might be typical of some of our less-informed movie stars. This is obviously a talented writer. But she needs to stick to micro-topics. Macro is really out of her league and just makes her seem silly.

Like many others, I found this book to be a disappointment after reading its brilliant predecessor. The writing in some cases appeared to be disjointed -- the characters weak -- the storyline, preditable.

I made the unfortunate choice of buying this book at the airport when my flight was canceled. For the first time in a long time, I simply stopped reading the book (after 100 pages) because it was so awful and I realized I was devoting my precious time to a book that was not worth the paper on which it was printed. Where is the editing? The tip off that there was none is the length of the book -- 500+ pages. From other reviews, it looks like Ms. Glass touches on 9/11. However, I think this book had to have been written more than seven years ago because I just finished reading a chapter where two characters express wonder that people carry around cell phones. Don't waste your time and money!

The problem with this obviously well-written novel is that it's not often a great read. Every once in a while, one of the story lines picks up steam and really takes off, only to be interrupted by one of the other story lines. In this case, more is less and I think this would have been a far better book without the whole Saga storyline. What's going on between Greenie and her husband is compelling enough. Saga's tale could have been a different book what with her uncle and intense family. When it popped up here, it was interesting but irritating because it was always interrupting the action of the other stories. The best character was probably Walter, certainly in many ways, the most sympathetic. I agree with the reviewer who said this book lumbers along.
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The Whole World Over is much likely one of the delectable desserts turned out by its heroine, pastry chef Charlotte "Greenie" Duquette: voluptuous, delight-inducing and lingerging.

The Whole World Over centers around Greenie Duquette, her psychotherapist husband Alan, and their small son, George, as Greenie deals with increasing marital dissatisfaction by uprooting mother and son to take a job as executive chef of the governor of New Mexico. Alan, left at odds in New York, copes fretfully with his newly solitary existence in Greenwich Village, establishing links to an unlikely assortment of characters, all drawn in vivid and surprising depth by author Julia Glass.

The Whole World Over offers a broad cast of sympathetic and well-rendered characters in locales ranging from Maine to Manhattan to Santa Fe to San Francisco to Connectict. The novel explores multiple lives and perspectives in astonishing detail-- author Julia Glass is perceptive about characters ranging from a five-year-old boy to a thirty-something woman recovering from a traumatic head injury to a retired professor of horticulture. While Greenie Duquette and her family provide the fulcrum around which the novel revolves, the work is a broad-ranging ensemble piece that cries out for a sequel. Those who enjoyed Glass's Three Junes will be pleased to see that its protagnoist, Fenno MacLeod, apears again in Whole World over in a supporting role.

The central theme of The Whole World Over, the creation, disintegration and continuation of marriages and families, is explored through Greenie Duquette and her family, and through the many households encountered by Greenie and her husband, Alan. Throughout, Glass's theme is one of couples and families joining, dissenting, compromising, separating and, in some cases, joining anew. Each family explores these themes in its own, highly individualized way. It is Glass's achievement that each of her characters and families is absorbing and sharply drawn, and that her complex composition never feels formulaic.

The ensemble character of The Whole World Over is both a winning feature and an occasional flaw. At times, the breadth of the novel is so wide that the narrative thread wanders. At the same time, the secondary and tertiary plots and characters are so well drawn that the reader is drawn into these, as well. While the novel's denouement sufficiently unites its many threads, Glass's narrative cries out for a sequel-- the stories of these characters could readily be continued and many readers, including this one, will no doubt clamor for more.

All told, The Whole World over offers readers a lively journey into a detailed, complex and absorbing world of marriages, families and intimate relationships. The book is leisurely, well-crafted and crammed with well-drawn characters and numerous surprises of plot and detail. If the narrative occasionally wanders, Glass always proves a worthy guide on an engaging and memorable excursion.

I almost let the other reviews here dissuade me from reading this book. That would have been unfortunate. I found it to be a great read with yes, interweaving story lines, but a very effective result. READ IT!!!

Unlike some of the reviewers here, I have not read anything else by this author, and had not read any reviews of the book, so I had no expectations. I found the book to be wholly absorbing and truthful about people and relationships. The plot never really went the way I expected it to, and I am very good at guessing how things will go, which can be annoying. I believed all the characters (yes, even Ray--I have known people like him, and could hear his voice clearly), and while it's true that Greenie is selfish, I found that authentic. We're all flawed.

The writing was good and didn't get in the way, and I liked bouncing around to the different stories; all of the plotlines were interesting. I agree, though, with another reviewer in that the character of Saga was the most intriguing.

This is a good book for a vacation or for reading before bed. Not disturbing (except for one chapter), just an insightful and entertaining visit to the lives of three different characters whose stories intertwine.

I fell in love with Julia Glass's writing when I read "Three Junes," which I read twice, then purchased as a gift for a couple of friends. I have to admit, though, as much as I wanted to, I did not like "The Whole World Over." The title itself is misleading: the novel takes place bouncing back and forth between New York and the Southwest.

The novel might have been more aptly titled, "From One Meal to the Next;" it seems to drag with tedious detail as the characters eat breakfast, then lunch, then dinner ... and they do it again and again and again...It started to feel like I was reading a recipe book instead of a novel and I found myself no longer caring about what happened to any of the one-dimensional characters. I also grew weary of all the unusual and cutsie nicknames she has given the characters, such as "Big -" and "Small George," and "Other Charlie." Julia did such an excellent job of creating depth and interest with characters in "Three Junes," but this time she falls disappointingly short.

One redeeming feature is the re-appearance of Fenno MacLeod, one of the main characters of "Three Junes," however, his appearances are fleeting and superficial, which was disappointing. I liked Fenno so much before and was impressed that the author included him as a secondary character in this story. In reality, Fenno adds very little toward moving this boring tale forward.

Perhaps "Three Junes" established for me an expectation of the author that was unrealistic. I may hesitate before rushing to read Julia's next novel.

Julia Glass is a magnificent writer. I, too, was blown away by "Three Junes" and eagerly awaited this next book. And, while by and large I understand the various criticisms put forth by some reviewers here, I must say that for me, "The Whole World Over" was an enormously satisfying book. I loved it! What Glass does particularly well is voice. Ray and Walter are the prime examples here, but equally so are the voices of the six-year-old George, and of Greenie's imperious mother, of Michael and Uncle Marsden... indeed there isn't one from this large cast of characters that isn't dead-on. I also find Glass an attentive observer of minute but telling domestic detail, which adds a glorious richness to most scenes. As in the "Three Junes," the story lines of various characters intertwine in quasi-serendipidous ways (indeed, there are some holdovers from the first novel) which may seem contrived to some. To me, it is wonderful metaphorical illustration of her title: the big world is really only made up of small interconnecting webs. I was reluctant to finish this book, but find the characters have remained with me. It was a deeply affecting read.

This book was a breath of fresh air to me. It got me out of my non-fiction rut and back into fiction in an overwhelmingly joyous way. Like another reviewer, I read this before Three Junes and therefore did not have expectations. I truly loved this book and could not put it down, tearing through it in about three days (very fast for me). I found Glass's characters very sympathetic and truly wanted to know what happened next to all of them. Several reviewers mentioned a disjointed feeling to the separate story lines but I disagree. They all meshed together and seemed to make perfect sense to this reader. This book is worth reading for the character of Saga/Emily alone. She is a phenomenal character who I would love to hear more about in (hopefully) a coming book of Glass's. I could relate to her struggles for a variety of reasons, but mostly because she captures the pain of being human in such a real way, although her struggles are considered to be a result of a disability of sorts. This is a book I would go out of my way to ask a friend "have you read this??? It's sooo great!"

Julia Glass does an outstanding job of interweaving multiple stories throughout the book, but you never get lost or have trouble figuring out who she's talking about now. That is up until about page 400, when she threw in the Sept 11th wrench. I know that my life was significantly affected by that day, but it just didn't seem like it fit. It felt like she was writing the story, then she wanted to add that part in as an afterthought. It was just too much, too big of yet another story to try and incorporate when you only have around 100 pages left in the book. I loved her book 'Three Junes' and easily got through this book, just because her writing is so great, but I really do think she jumped on the bandwagon of trying to make a book about 9/11.

Julia Glass does an outstanding job of interweaving multiple stories throughout the book, but you never get lost or have trouble figuring out who she's talking about now. That is up until about page 400, when she threw in the Sept 11th wrench. I know that my life was significantly affected by that day, but it just didn't seem like it fit. It felt like she was writing the story, then she wanted to add that part in as an afterthought. It was just too much, too big of yet another story to try and incorporate when you only have around 100 pages left in the book. I loved her book 'Three Junes' and easily got through this book, just because her writing is so great, but I really do think she jumped on the bandwagon of trying to make a book about 9/11.

This is a beautifully written novel with compelling characters who grapple with love and the pain they inflict on each other, set in the time leading up to 9/11.

I could not stand the the main characters. Greenie was quick to run away from her marriage and then to have an affair. All at the risk of losing her child/family. Alan was a checked out husband. Put the two of them together and you spend the entire book feeling extremely frustrated by their antics. The secondary characters were more interesting (Walter, Saga, even Stan). If someone asked me if they should read this book, I would have to tell them to give it a pass and recommend about 20 other books that are a sure thing.

Everyone is comparing this follow up novel to "The Three Junes" When a novel is as perfect as that, the follow up is rarely as good. However, I enjoyed this book a great deal. The characters were genuine and very likable. I found it easy to relate to their stories, dilemmas and decisions. I would definitely recommend it!

Like many of the other reviewers, I did not find this book as instantly compelling as Three Junes. But that's okay; it has other virtues. I find its strongest virtue best described through something else that it's not.

The Whole World Over takes place largely on Bank Street in New York City and in Santa Fe, but, with one exception I'll cover later, it's not evocative of either. (I've worked in lower Manhattan for the last 25 years, a friend of mine lives on Bank Street, and I spend a week and a half in Santa Fe every August.) I assume that this is deliberate, and I assume that it's meant to focus us on what matters in this novel: the creation of family.

Many of the characters - and there are many characters - come from families that don't function well. These characters respond by creating their own families, through sex and friendship. In Santa Fe, this doesn't work out, but to focus on Santa Fe would distract our attention from why it doesn't. One of the main characters, Greenie, goes from Bank Street to Santa Fe and back to Bank Street, with excursions to Maine. It doesn't matter where she is; it matters where she can create an enduring family. Both New York and Santa Fe seem strangely under-populated in this book, as if the only characters there are the ones in the novel. The created families become the neighborhoods.

There is one exception to this, I thought. Five years after the fact, I still find it uncomfortable to think of September 11, 2001, in lower Manhattan. Julia Glass does a great job of invoking this discomfort. The attack on the World Trade Center is focused through Saga, another of the many main characters. Saga is recovering from a traumatic brain injury, and at first she can't figure out what was happening. I've had no brain injury, but her confusion seemed just right. I heard the plane, louder than any plane I'd heard in New York. I felt the explosion. I heard a colleague yelling that the World Trade Center was on fire. But I couldn't connect these three seemingly discreet events. What I remember best from the start of that day was bewilderment. This was site-specific, and Julia Glass captures it perfectly. I wish she hadn't.

I'll end with a warning. If you're going to read this book, set aside some time to do it fairly rapidly. There are so many characters, and so many circumstances, that I think it would be difficult to pick up again after a break.

I could not stand the the main characters. Greenie was quick to run away from her marriage and then to have an affair. All at the risk of losing her child/family. Alan was a checked out husband. Put the two of them together and you spend the entire book feeling extremely frustrated by their antics. The secondary characters were more interesting (Walter, Saga, even Stan). If someone asked me if they should read this book, I would have to tell them to give it a pass and recommend about 20 other books that are a sure thing.

Everyone is comparing this follow up novel to "The Three Junes" When a novel is as perfect as that, the follow up is rarely as good. However, I enjoyed this book a great deal. The characters were genuine and very likable. I found it easy to relate to their stories, dilemmas and decisions. I would definitely recommend it!

I loved this book. I found the characters rich and compelling. The descriptions are beautiful. It's not a book you want to tear through, but one you want to sit with and savor. What I liked best was the essential decency in all the characters. It's much easier to write a frightning psychopath than to keep the readers interest when describing real people who may hurt one another, but who always care.

After the hype on this book, I was extremely disappointed at how it rambled along with extraneous detail that never made a cohesive whole. I kept at it, hoping it would improve but alas, dear reader it does not.

Julia Glass' character development is complex and real-identification with the characters grows as the book is read. In addition the author's language use is at once lyrical and picks up the nuances expected in each scenario by the given character. Information about New Mexico, ranch life,excellent catered menus, NYC everyday life and even the life of the character who sleeps in a restaurant garden of on occasion all draw the reader furtherinto the story andthe lives within it. The reader begins to care for each of them even when astonished at their individual behaviors. Turning pages to learn the fates they face often keeps one reading longer than anticipated; a book that is hard to put down. I would wholeheartedly recommend it to other readers and will pass on my copy to friends.

If Julia Glass had not set the bar so high with Three Junes, I would have given the book 3 stars instead of 2. There are sentences, paragraphs, even pages of brilliance in this book, but it is as if winning the National Book Award gave Ms. Glass unconditional confidence in her writing, and character development in particular. She seemed out of touch with the major demographics the narrative slings around. As another reviewer wrote, the writing process seemed transparant. Reading the book, you get the feeling that the characters are what Ms. Glass (a privileged white woman of a certain age) imagines teenagers, or New Mexicans, or black chauffeurs, or Hispanic nannies, or even gay people to be like. She is like a tourist who voyeuristically delights in other cultures without really understanding them. The teenagers and the Santa Fe inhabitants are the most painful examples of caricatures. Greenie might be the most believable, and although I understood why she was falling out of love with her gloomy Alan, I wasn't sucked along with her when she falls in love with "the other Charlie". He was only very mildly interesting and certainly not worth (even temporarily) losing your child over. With Saga, she manages to develop her most sympathetic character, but Saga's life is left floating and unresolved at the end. Even the brief appearance of Fenno, who I loved in Three Junes, lacked intensity and seemed gimmicky. All and all, a very disappointing second novel. You have to wonder, since most reviewers are pointing out all of the same problems with character, what good is her editor?

Since I did not read Three Junes previously, I had no sense of let down that other readers seemed to have. I feel privileged to realize that when I pick up Three Junes I will probably think it is even better if half the criticism here is true. But as a first time Glass reader, I was really impressed. I love her writing style and I did not have a problem with storyline breaks and sections that went back and forth from past to present. If anything it made it more interesting. I do agree that I was actually not sympathetic to the two main characters, Greenie and Alan. I found the secondary characters much more appealing and enjoyable.

When I picked up the book, I did not realize that it dealt with 9/11, which I scrupulously avoid as a general rule. I was shocked to find myself reading about it, however, I do think she did a fantastic job portraying the event and the aftermath of New Yorkers as well as the rest of the country. Of the three storylines in the book, I was disappointed in the way Saga's storyline was wrapped up. It felt like the conclusion was an afterthought and I was dissatisfied by how she ended it. For that reason alone, I couldn't give it 5 stars. However, I am glad to have found a new author to add to my list of must reads. This was a very good book.

I think I'm one of the few, but I have to say I truly enjoyed this more than 'Three Junes'. The threading of multiple plotlines involving an intersecting clan of New Yorkers looking and struggling with love was mostly successful to me, although there would be times I'd be missing a particular character and would be anxious to get back to their story.
What I admired about the book is the choices these people were making in their relationships seemed so real to me because there were no easy answers, and many times conflicted resolutions. Glass also plays freely on the senses, creating vivid descriptive passages involving color and taste, with one character a chef, and another a restaurant owner. Consequently there were times I found myself salivating while reading.
An element of the book I had forgotten was the prevading cloud of 9/11 that rears itself about two thirds of the way through the novel, and it's impact on the characters. In less capable hands this could be seen as a manipulative literary device, however here it only informs and enriches the story lines as she brings the novel to a close.

I enjoyed The Whole World Over as much as I enjoyed Three Junes.

I personally did not relate well to Greenie, one of the main characters, and didn't understand a lot of the choices she made. But unlike some of the other readers, I enjoyed getting inside of her head and trying to understand her life.

My favorite character (outside of Fenno from Three Junes) was definitely Saga. Saga is the reason I gave the novel 5 stars, because I loved the way Glass described the colors and textures of words though Saga's eyes.

I think the husband, Alan, was an underrated character by other readers. He was truly human, even in his occasional coldness.

As many of the other reviewers have written, this book is no "Three Junes." While, I found it to be an enjoyable enough read and some of the characters were engaging, ultimately, it seemed to lack heft and significance. There were simply too many characters and too many stories to follow. And some of the characters (Walter) were walking stereotypes. One of my biggest complaints about the book is with Glass's writing of dialogue. Glass tries so hard to have a different voice for each character that sometimes she goes to far, like the cheesy "western" style of the New Mexico Governor. Even more troubling, Glass writes dialogue for at least two African-American characters in a way that is borderline offensive.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I enjoyed reading it, and couldn't wait to get back to it. The plot was well done, especially at the end. On the other hand, some of the characters were not appealing, especially Greenie, her son George, and the governor. Also to me, as a New Mexican, her description of the state and its citizens was slightly off, even at times a little condescending.
Some of the other characters, especially Saga and Fenno are wonderfully drawn. Julia Glass is an excellent writer and I enjoyed her descriptions of cooking, scrabble, words as colors, etc. It definitely was worth reading, though a bit disappointing and not nearly as good as Three Junes. I anxiously await her next book!

Contrary to some of the other reviews, I actually preferred The Whole World Over to The Three Junes. I thought the book was extremely well written, with complex and interesting characters as well as complex and interesting relationships. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes character driven novels.

The author of The Three Junes proves again why she is a winner of the National Book Award

It's the rare contemporary novel that is peopled with characters you feel you know when you finish the book. Julia Glass has filled "The Whole World Over" with a crowd--Greenie, Alan, George, Saga, Gordie, Walter, Ray, Mary Bliss, Diego, Scott, Sonia, Stephen, Fenno, Pansy, Frida--and assorted others, all of them astoundlingly real. Most of them are lovely, some of them are awful, all of them are interesting.

The reader has to work a little to fall in love with "The Whole World Over." This is not minimalist fiction. There's no straight-ahead plot to follow. There are lots of details and lots of digressions, many of them about food and cooking. Characters move in and out of the foreground. Just when you're hooked by a love affair in Santa Fe, you're forced, in the next section, to consider a brother-sister reunion in San Francisco.

OK, "The Whole World Over" is looser and less neatly structured than Glass's celebrated first novel, "Three Junes." Too many reviewers view it as a failed attempt, a second novel that does not live up to their expectations. But I was swept away by its depth and brilliance.

As many of the reviewers of this book are, I am a great fan of Julia Glass' first book, "Three Junes", and had eagerly been waiting for her follow-up. I was dismayed to read so many middling reviews of "The Whole World Over," but was determined to give it a try myself. I really wanted to like the book, but a hundred pages in I found myself disappointedly sympathizing with the reviewers on this site who had given up at that point and had no remorse about not continuing. I kept reading out of loyalty to Glass -- and to the fact that I hadn't actually liked the first part of "Three Junes" either, and I wound up loving that novel in the end. Unfortunately, "The Whole World Over" doesn't pick up the way her first book did. The characters just aren't very involving, and their stories don't make you want to find out more about them. They are very grounded and thought-out, but ultimately feel more planned than realistic. There is also a very disjointed narrative structure that awkwardly transitions, in each chapter, from 2000-2001 (when the present-day action is unfolding) to some point in the past of whichever character that chapter is about, and then back to the present. The cast of characters is a little too crowded as well, particularly for the narrative form Ms. Glass has chosen. Storylines are constantly getting put on hold to switch to another one, and since none of them are very interesting it only serves to distance you further from the action. Glass also seems to have developed a taste for cutesy language that feels cloying -- and her efforts to nickname each of her characters becomes grating after a while. She also falls into the trap of over-using the words like, totally, dude, and man in the dialogue of her younger, teen or twenty-something characters. It would be one thing if only one of them spoke that way, but when all three of them do it (Candace/Candy, Scott, and Sonya/Spiderwoman)it just hurts your head. I'm 24 and I have never spoken that way, and most of my friends didn't even speak that way in high school, so it just feels at best like a lazy, cliched way for a writer to try and use a different dialogue technique or, at worst, like the author does not trust her readers to remember that there is an age difference between the characters talking. That is a particular pet peeve of mine when it comes to fiction.

Anyway, I mentioned earlier that I sympathized with the people who gave up on this novel after a hundred pages or so, but I am glad that I stuck with it because Glass does return to glorious form in the last sixty pages or so, when the 9/11 attacks take place. Her coverage of the events of that day could have felt exploitative or overly dramatic but it isn't. At last she stopped cloying and hit upon some genuine emotion! Glass does a remarkable and admirable job of capturing the events of the day and the conflicting feelings that came with it (horror, panic, anger, sadness for those lost and joy for the people who called to say that they were safe). It is the best take on that day that I have read in a fiction book in the years that have followed, and it is just unfortunate that such perceptive observations and genuinely good writing is crammed into the last 60 pages of an otherwise mediocre novel. If there had been more like that I would be able to say that the book is worth recommending, but I can't bring myself to advise anyone to slog through 450 pages of trifle for one brief, heartbreaking moment of genius.

Like most people, I bought this book by Julia Glass because of her "Three Junes." I struggled through it, not quitting because I was hoping that it might correct itself, was leading to something, or that the rambling and disconnected writing -- full of so much superfluous detail (example: Toward the end of the book, the characters, most of whom are quite unlikable and often cartoony, play Scrabble and we get to play along, learning what words they play and where, even though this has nothing to do with the plot line, what there is) as to be ridiculous. The book had the feel of someone writing frantically to fill pages because there was a deadline looming. I heard myself saying or thinking as I began another long section: "Good God, where are we heading here, why are we being told this?" I also realize that a protagonist is a cook, but the attention to meal descriptions became laughable. I am a prodigious reader and also a writer and admire the craft. I admire Ms. Glass, and I know she is a pro, but I feel badly for her that her editors allowed this one to see the light of day. But here's the good news: Books I have not liked have been known to win major literary prizes. So . . . .

Am I the only one who found this book more cohesive than Glass's first? I enjoyed both. The Whole World Over is full of life, full of the way real parents relate to their children -- partly generous, partly narcissistic, all intense -- and full of the ambivalence that is present in most relationships. I appreciate that the children in the book are never totally reduced to cuteness. If you are looking for a total immersion in downtown NYC as lived in by complicated middle-aged people, you will find it here. Agreed that there is too much about food and too much detail, but overall I found the book a very satisfying read and I continue to mull over the characters. It is a book full of loss and birth and loss. It reflects, without cliche, the very many different ways people make lives for themselves and find connection.

Author Julia Glass in her new novel The whole World Over presents life through the eyes of an eclectic collection of characters whose lives intersect throughout the few years leading up to the fateful events of September 11th. Greenie Duquette thinks she has everything. A successful Greenwich Village pastry chef, Greenie owns her own catering business, and is married to psychotherapist husband Alan. They have a four-year-old son George, who is an avid reader and somewhat of a child prodigy.

But Greenie's tranquil and settled life belies fact that she's just aching to break out of the mold. When her best restaurateur friend Walter tells her of a job opportunity to be private chef for the Governor of New Mexico, Greenie jumps at the prospect. She doesn't hesitate to move to Santa Fe, taking the young George with her. Alan, of course, is slightly chagrined, underhandedly resenting Greenie's success, but stubbornly refusing to join her.

As a result, the couple's marriage slowly fractures and they drift apart. Greenie hooks up with Charlie, a handsome old flame, whilst Alan discovers that he once fathered a child with Marion, a high-school sweetheart. Meanwhile, the inexplicably blessed and footloose Walter becomes embroiled in a romantic entanglement with Gordie, an attractive attorney, who is in long-term relationship with Stephen. Stephen and Gordie are Alan's patients, and both were thinking of adopting a child until Gordie unceremoniously dumped Stephen.

But is Stephen's passion for child rearing only masking his heartbreak, in which the bubble might ultimately, burst? The passion of the young twenty-something Saga - who coincidently meets Alan on the street - is to care for lost animals. She hooks up with the older cynical Stan, an organizer of a group of people to look out for strays and rescue abused animals in Manhattan. Saga is trying to take back her life after suffering from a devastating brain injury. She not only finds solace in Alan's friendship, but also seeks comfort with Scottish bookseller Fenno McLeod.

Together with a large supporting cast, Glass' characters are consistently orbiting each other in a type of six degrees of separation-like fugue, where the actions of a person in New York at the end of the day influence the life of someone in Santa Fe or San Francisco. The central protagonists in this novel always seem to be yearning for the same things - love, respect, and even babies, and all at various times are plagued with doubts, regrets and agonies.

Deep down Greenie yearns to escape this city, and getaway from the anxieties of how to get along with her husband and how to afford a home where her son can have a real room. Walter is glad to be sentimentalist, and is unashamed of the homeliest pleasures, but his life is thrown into chaos when his young nephew arrives from San Francisco to stay for an extended period. Saga is confused and in pain and humiliated by the inability to recover parts of herself that she could almost recall. And Alan must wrestle with his own demons, especially with guilt over his infidelity with Marion all those years ago.

As the past progressively encroaches on the present - there are meticulous back-stories on each character - Glass steadily draws her protagonists into the chaos of 9/11. Greenie - obviously the central character - is unable to deny the reality of her situation - she can evidently have a great life in Santa Fe, but her dilemma is whether she can forsake her marriage and her husband for this life. Soon she discovers that her two worlds are not as easily separated, as she believed.

These people inhabit a loaded, political, euphemistic, and convoluted world and although they might venture into "the whole world over," in the end they return to their separate colonies. The themes of baking and cooking appear throughout and it's as though Glass is almost intent to liken her characters to recipes. The realization, however is that people are in the end not at all like recipes, "you could have all the right ingredients in all the right amounts and still there were no guarantees."

Meticulously written, The Whole World Over is a conversationalist's delight. The dialogue is witty and clever - keep in mind, these are all highly intelligent and cultured people, who also just happen to be remarkably spirited and who set upon life with a gusto that is undiminished, and almost certainly revered.

At over five hundred pages, the book is indeed a weighty tome, and sometimes it is not as tightly knit, as it should be. The convoluted storyline - as it switches from Santa Fe, to New York and then on to Maine - along with the endlessly droll conversations end up making the novel a bit tedious.

The characters are nothing if not educated and presumably smart enough to work their problems out and along the way, they are constantly tested by events often beyond their control. There is so much life embedded in these characters that you can forgive any of the novel's apparent shortcomings. Mike Leonard July 06.

Second books are always fraught with peril, and since Three Junes is one of my all time favorites, I was a tad nervous about this one. And I will say it was not quite as good as Three Junes, but I disagree with most of the "truly awful" reviews that are on this page. I thought it was a lovely book. I do agree that Greenie was my least favorite character, and I didn't love the son - but neither of them was that bad. I felt the story was very real - the main story about Greenie and her family is the kind kind of thing that can and does happen quite frequently, and I thought the way 9/11 was woven into the "wind up" of everyone's stories was very well done. This was not a book about 9/11, 9/11 is an event - albeit a major one- that happens to the characters and quite naturally causes great changes in the trajectories of their lives. I definately recommend this book. Ms. Glass is one of our finest writers, and small problems aside - it's well worth the read.
And am I the only reader who noticed - and liked - that Fenno Macleod from Three Junes reappeared in this book?

The book fell apart for me at the end. I was uneasy knowing that the book involved the events of 9/11 since I lived through that day. It felt to me like a literary device that the author used to tie up her characters' lives and insert political views into her book. This book was the first book that I have read by this author and I am not inclined to read another now.

I was worried when this book started with a cake recipe, but it quickly develops into a multi-faceted tale with a number of story lines. Greenie is the baker, whose talent with cakes takes her from NYC to New Mexico, where she becomes the personal chef of a maverick governor. She leaves her husband, Alan, and takes her four-year-old son, George. In New Mexico she reunites with a childhood friend and they fall in love. Her already faltering marriage looms close to ending, and Alan comes to New Mexico to reclaim George. But this is only one of the stories. The others involve Walter, a gay restaurant owner in the West Village who Greenie baked for, who falls in love with Gordie, part of a couple who seek therapy from Alan. The relationship fizzles due to Gordie's reticence and Walter, alone again, invites his Bay area nephew to live with him. Scott leaves his conventional family for excitement in the Big Apple and overdoes his welcome, trashing Walter's apartment with his Goth girlfriend. Walter kicks him out and Scott decides to fly home to CA on 9/11, possibly on one of the planes that crashed. Writing about 9/11 is no longer novel, but Glass comes up w/ a few new twists. Walter's remorse at sending Scott away to his possible death isn't so intriguing, but the impact of 9/11 on another character, Saga, is. The woman whose brain injury has incapacitated her and forced her to learn even basic physical skills anew feels guilty after the 9/11 crashes, because she's so self obsessed with her own problems that she can't worry about anyone else's. Saga is actually the most interesting character in the story. She arrives carrying a bag of stray puppies on the way to a shelter and meets Alan, who agrees to help her. She lives with her uncle in Connecticut, trying to recover, with the rest of her family unsupportive, coming into NYC frequently to help with the stray pets. The workings of her mind - remembering old words and images from the past as she tries to function again, carry a good deal of the story. But of course, there are many other elements here in this wide ranging tale that goes from NYC to New Mexico and back with stops in CT and Maine and a full range of characters with problems dealing from lost love to child rearing, and cake.

I loved this book! The writing was beautiful, with so many interesting characters and plotlines. The author's descriptions of places and things made the book come alive for me. I could picture everything so vividly. I don't agree with many of the comments about Greenie and her son. I didn't especially LIKE Greenie, but I understand her motives from the book. She seemed very real to me. As the mother of a 5 year old daughter, I think Greenie's son was well-written and realistic (just not the most "normal" kid I've ever run into!) It was a little difficult to go back and forth between all the different stories at the beginning of the book, but about mid-way through, it all clicked. I couldn't stop reading.