Goldberg Variations: a Novel by Susan Isaacs

Author Susan Isaacs has published more than a dozen novels since 1978, and has always stayed relevant. That is, until now. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Goldberg Variations. I just felt it was unlike anything I had ever read by her. This is the story of 80-year-old Gloria Goldberg, owner of Glory, a company known for bringing current makeup and fashion trends to small-town America. For the last several decades, Glory has been Gloria's whole life. She has had very little contact with her ex-husband or her two sons (one now deceased) or their families.

But now Gloria is in a predicament. She had planned to sell her company to her long time assistant when she decided to retire. But after a recent blowup, Keith has left the company and now Gloria has no one she trusts to take over Glory. She decides to summon her three twenty-something grandchildren to her estate and choose one of them to take the reins. What has not occurred to Gloria is that perhaps none of them would want it.

Now what should she do? Try to make amends to the people she has ignored for most of their lives? And how could she even do that? The answer turns out to be both sad and amusing!

Karen

Readalike author: Jennifer Weiner