Saturn's Return to New York

By Sara Gran

When Mary Forrest receives the gift of an astrological reading for her birthday, she doesn't expect it to be the harbinger of her life's imminent upheaval. 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, change that Mary is unprepared for. She must overcome intimacy and abandonment issues, resurrect her relationship with her ailing mother, and learn to trust the man that she loves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jul 1, 2003
• ISBN: 9781569479247

Sara Gran

Sara Gran is the author of Saturn’s Return to New York, Come Closer, Dope, as well as two previous novels featuring Claire DeWitt. Her work has been published in more than a dozen countries. Born in Brooklyn, Sara lived in New York City until 2004. She now lives in Los Angeles and has a successful career writing for television.

Reviews for Saturn's Return to New York

[sparemethecensor · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved it. Beautifully rendered relationships and perhaps the truest rendering of modern New York I've read.

[bookczuk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Anyone who loves NYC would probably get a kick out of this book. I give it 4 stars because there were so many moments that I really enjoyed, where it really engaged me or where it called to mind my relationship with my mother, or my family's New York. And though the mother/daughter relationship was quite different from my own experience in many ways, there were many similarities, too. I think this is Gran's debut novel, but haven't checked it out thoroughly.Things I liked about this book:1. Descriptions of New York City. My bet is that if I went looking, I'd find most of the places or find that the old spots did exist -- even the leather store on Christopher Street.2. The New Yorkers in the book were true New Yorkers -- not the NYC people that seem to populate chick lit (which I wouldn't call this book). Near chick lit, maybe but not chick lit.3. Even though there's a magazine editor involved, it's a magazine of substance (literary review) vs fashion. 4. Beautiful portrayal of Evelyn, (the mother), both in back-story and in present, living with illness.5. Correct interpretations of astrological practice, straight from the get-go. In astrology, the 29th year is recognized as significant and as the year you become an adult. Mary's path to adult-hood was one that was realistic, and probably would only be recognized in hindsight. She grew as a character, but still carried some of her foibles with her (hence the last scene in the book.)6. Depiction of mother-daughter relationship. I appreciated it was not perfect, but that it continued to grow and develop, mostly as Evelyn stayed steady and Mary really became an adult.7. The loss, love and loyalty that was woven through the plot.8. Mary recognizing she had caught the "the" disease when they went back to Brooklyn: "She died because she had the congenital heart."9. Description of living with memory loss.10. Relationships (and characters) were not tied up with pretty bows, but were real, with their ups and downs. What I didn't like:The abruptness of the ending. It took us time to get into Mary's world -- I felt the author just dumped us out on the sidewalk very abruptly at the end. I do promise to go back and read the last bit again and see if I change my mind.

[sengels_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A daughter deals with her mother's illness and life as a young single woman in New York. Sara Gran's novels are compelling and as with her others, you won't want to put it down. Intelligent literature is always welcome.