"Escape" Review

Leading busy lives dominated by technology seems to be the running theme for too many individuals and families these days. It is this theme that Barbara Delinsky had in mind when she penned her adult fiction novel “Escape” (July 5, 2011).

            Emily Aulenbach is a fit, young, thirty-something. She is a lawyer married to a lawyer, both living and working in Manhattan. She had once dreamed of working with clients face-to-face and representing the victims in courtrooms. Instead, she is sitting in one of many cubicles with a headset attached to her head and is currently taking information from victims who drank tainted bottled water.

            Things are getting to her, but it isn’t simply her boss or her work environment. It’s her sister nagging Emily about doing all the planning for a sixtieth birthday party their mother does not want. It’s her Manhattan friends who aren’t really her friends, at least, not the type of close friends she misses having. It’s even her husband, James, with whom she doesn’t connect to like she used to. In fact, she herself has been so consumed with time – her watch, her Blackberry and her computer – that she doesn’t have time for anything else. TV? Ha. Sleeping in? What is sleep? Kids? She wishes (and they have been trying).

            One morning, everything is rushing in on her like a torrential downpour. In her thoughts she asks, “Did you ever consider disappearing – leaving family, friends, even a spouse – ditching everything you’ve known and starting over again?” She answers no, but then this particular morning comes around and before noon, she finds herself back at the condo in Gramercy Park throwing clothes in a suitcase and going … where?

            After a couple stops that she isn’t feeling, she ends up in Bell Valley, a small, fictional, New Hampshire town. It’s a town she knows, having spent a college summer there. Her best friend, Vicki Bell Baudry, lives there with her husband and their daughter, Charlotte. They run the Red Fox bed-and-breakfast. She is also very fond of the Refuge, where abandoned, hurt animals go to recuperate and hopefully be adopted.

            While in Bell Valley, she reconnects with Vicki Bell, who felt Emily had abandoned their friendship. She also reconnects with the Refuge, Jude – a former love from a decade ago and Vicki’s brother, and even Vicki’s and Jude’s mom, Amelia. She needs to figure out her life. She’s obviously miserable, but has running away helped her find the answers she needs? Can she reconnect with James? Or will something flame up when Jude returns to Bell Valley?

            Emily eventually meets Vicki’s baker, Lee, and hears her sad and interesting story. It even involves shady dealings that cost Lee money that should’ve been hers. It is her dream to open a bakery. Can Emily help Lee recover what she has lost so that she doesn’t live in fear? Can James help and could it stoke the fire that’s gone out in him due to the law firm he is at?

            As far as language is concerned, it is mostly clean. Content is mild. The story itself, though, is at times an emotional rollercoaster (guilt, happiness, giddiness, sadness, frustration, more guilt, freedom) and just enjoying the moment. Oh. And coyotes. Emily apparently connects with coyotes.

            Overall, it is an enjoyable read. The plot may be familiar – someone doubting what they are currently doing and having something of an early-life crisis – but Delinsky puts in a few twists. Her characters, though, seem quite real. In a large city, they could easily be the neighbors you don’t have time to know. Or, in a small town, they are the neighbors you would never have because you actually know everyone in at least a three-mile radius.

            Barbara Delinsky wrote this novel knowing that most, if not all, need an escape. Do you?