To be sung underwater : a novel

 by Tom McNeal.  *Starred Review* Judith Whitman is deeply dissatisfied with her seemingly glamorous life in California. Her work as a film editor, which once held such joy, now gives her migraines; she suspects that her urbane husband is having an affair; and her beautiful daughter, once so loving, is now revealed as entitled and self-absorbed. Increasingly, her thoughts are drawn to the summers she lived in Nebraska with her father, specifically, the summer she fell in love with Willy Blunt. One phone call to him is all it takes for her to ditch her work and her life and head back to Nebraska. There she comes face to face with the full ramifications of her earlier decision to leave home for Stanford and lose touch with the boy with whom she had been so deeply in love. Their easy familiarity with each other, their special humor, and their physical connection instantly resurface. In this thoughtful and compelling look at the road not taken, McNeal (Goodnight, Nebraska, 1998) calls up the landscape of the Great Plains as a place where it's possible to see that it's the simple things a secluded swimming hole, a cold beer, the laughter of the person you love that are most valuable. --Booklist (Check catalog)