Blog Tour of Dori Ostermiller's Outside the Ordinary World

Outside the Ordinary World by Dori Ostermiller

The blurb:
"Did it feel like you had a choice?  Or were you driven by forces beyond your control?"

Sylvia Sandon always swore she wouldn't become her mother.  But one August morning she finds herself walking the same path as the fervently religious yet faithless Elaine.. .into an affair she feels powerless to resist.

Against the backdrop of California brush fires in the 1970s, twelve-year-old Sylvia had agreed to hold a secret that would devour her family's dream of happiness.  Now struggling to create a better life in small-town New England, Sylvia nonetheless feels caught in the coils of history:  she confronts the embers of her dying marriage, the all-consuming needs of her two daughters and her faltering artistic career.  Then Tai Rosen -- the father of a student -- ignites an unexpected passion and a familiar betrayal that could illuminate the past, even as it jeopardizes everything dear.


Outside the Ordinary World reveals what lies beneath the surface of infidelity.  But at its heart, it is the story of the powerful, sometimes disturbing bond between mothers and daughters, and the shimmering line between self-revelation and self-destruction. . . .

Review:
Dori Ostermiller captures the complex relationship between mother and daughter so well.  The exceedingly high standard to which we hold our mothers and the deep and vocal disapproval that we show when they disappoint us.  Reading Outside the Ordinary World I sympathized with Sylvia's mother,  her attempts at fidelity and the love that sustained her during the tough moments.  It was easy to like Sylvia and worry about her as well - to sympathize with her as she struggled against the temptations to her marriage. 


Outside the Ordinary World is a carefully crafted, nuanced and deeply sympathetic novel about fulfilling promises, being loyal -- both to others and to yourself.  Ostermiller's Outside the Ordinary World is a satisfying and unusual read.

ISBN-10: 0778328899 - Paperback $14.95
Publisher: Mira; Original edition (July 27, 2010), 400 pages.
Review copy provided by TLC Book Tours and the publisher.

About the Author:
Dori Ostermiller left her native California at twenty-four to complete an MFA in writing at the University of Massachusetts.  She is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist's Grant, and the founder of the Writers in Progress, a literary art center in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts.   She currently lives with her husband and daughters in Northampton, where she is at work on her second novel. 

Thank you to the publisher, Dori Ostermiller and TLC Book Tours for this review opportunity!