Saturn's Return to New York

A Novel

From the author of the Claire DeWitt series: This “witty and poignant” novel of a woman moving on to a new stage of life, as her mother does the same (Rocky Mountain News).
 
Mary Forrest is in her late twenties and comes from a literary family—her widowed mother still runs a prominent journal and shows up at Manhattan book parties packed with writers and intellectuals. Decades ago, Evelyn Forrest faced the kind of harassment that would make headlines in later times, but now her daughter works in publishing in an era that’s a little easier for women. Yet, young Mary is about to face some challenges of her own.
 
Evelyn’s memory has been giving her problems—like “going home” to the place on Twelfth Street where she hasn’t lived since 1977. As Mary tries to support her mother, she struggles with personal relationships, and discovers that a coworker is brazenly trying to steal her job. At an astrological reading that she got as a birthday gift, a psychic explained that this is Mary’s Saturn Return year, her twenty-ninth; the year that the planet Saturn returns to exact spot it was in when she was born. It presages a time of change, and the last painful struggle before finally entering genuine adulthood. So far, it appears to be an accurate prediction . . .