The Singing Teacher: A Novel - Hardcover

Essentially gentle and overfamiliar when it strives for zaniness, Skramstad's debut--about a midlife crisis--may strike a chord with women in the protagonist's boat. Lilly Blake gave up her opera career and married stable lawyer Frank after she was passed over for a role--a choice she hasn't regretted too much, except that she still has fantasies about performing, chooses to sleep in her old costumes, sees her unmanageable red hair as indicative of a dizzy personality and her marriage as the idea that ``Frank is the anchor and I'm a skiff blowing around and around in a high wind.'' But when daughter Christie prepares to leave for college, with son Peter to follow, Lilly panics. What will she and Frank do alone together? While reassessing her life, Lilly copes with fears for those she loves: Christie (who sometimes dresses like Madame Butterfly and may be about to give her virginity to a boy who wears a kilt); her mother (who believes Lilly's father is having an affair); her father (who does seem to have a secret); her fashion-plate best friend (who lusts after a tennis pro); and even dull, stable Frank, who has begun to show his own signs of midlife insanity, including an obsession with cowboys. Lilly overreacts a lot, but mostly remains sensible and sweet, concluding that ``it's OK because it looks like we're all in it together, floating down the good old river of life.'' A reassuring if unremarkable excursion. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.