by Elizabeth Berg
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| List Price: | $23.95 |
| Average Rating: |  |
| Lowest New Price: | $3.45 |
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Product Description
You know people like me. I'm the one who sat in a folding chair out in the hall selling tickets to the prom but never going, the one everybody liked but no one wanted to be with. A self-anointed spinster at fifty-one, Myra Lipinsky has endured the isolation of her middle life by doting on her dog, Frank, and immersing herself in her career as a visiting nurse. Myra considers herself reasonably content, telling herself, It's enough, work and Frank. And it has been enough -- until Chip Reardon, the too-good-to-be-true golden boy she adored from afar, is assigned to be her new patient. Choosing to forgo invasive treatment for an incurable illness, Chip has returned from Manhattan to the New England home of his childhood to spend what time he has left. Now, Myra and Chip find themselves engaged in a poingnant redefinition of roles, and a complicated dance of memory, ambivalence, and longing.
From the author whose work The New Yorker calls "strong" and "timeless" comes a wry and beautifully distilled portrait of one woman's resilience in the face of loneliness, and of a union that transcends life's most unexpected and challenging circumstances. With effortless warmth, and loving respect for characters that defies easy sentiment, Never Change melds the emotional depth and gentle intensity of poetry with the rich satisfactions of finely wrought fiction.
Amazon.com Review
Elizabeth Berg has a single great gift as a novelist. She creates heroines who are stuck and unhappy, yet deeply sympathetic. This may seem like an easy trick to pull off, but it's not. Think about it: usually when a character is mired in a problem--especially a problem stemming from her own reluctance to change, or fear of commitment, or lack of identity--the reader is ready within a few dozen pages to shout, "Pull yourself together!" and set the book aside. In contrast, Berg's characters seem like enjoyable challenges: problems with actual solutions. In Never Change, Berg uses her gift to great advantage. Middle-aged Myra Lipinsky describes herself as "the one who sat on a folding chair out in the hall with a cigar box on my lap selling tickets to the prom, but never going." And despite a flourishing career as a visiting nurse, she feels as much an also-ran as ever. As the novel begins, in fact, high school seems to be rearing its ugly head again: Chip Reardon, the heartthrob of Myra's youth, has returned to town to live with his parents. Chip is dying from a brain tumor, and Myra becomes his nurse. Berg is not the kind of writer to lay bare the unsettling power dynamics of such a situation. Instead, Chip and Myra become friends and, well, learn how to love each other. It's a testament to the author's strong sense of character that we actually believe--and what's more, care about--Myra's emergence from her emotional cocoon. And the book is full of nice details, like this snapshot of children being read to at a library, "rising up on their knees to see the pictures, resting their hands unselfconsciously on those ahead of them so that they would not lose their balance." Such careful observations, recounted in Myra's voice, make us believe that she is a character worth knowing, and worth saving. --Claire Dederer
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Average Customer Review:
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
 Characters that are so easy to really know!, 2002-08-28
Oh, what a wonderful book!
This is not a depressing story about terminal illness.
This is a book about friendship and caring, old high school crushes and teenage insecurities, and is a lot like attending a 20 year class reunion.
Myra is a home visiting nurse that actually cares about her clients. She feels a responsibility to help them make good choices concerning their health and their lives.
Chip, an old high school football star, is assigned to Myra when he is diagnosed with a termial brain tumor. Myra's secret teenage "yearning" stirs again. Her insecure, serving personality is back and she's back to guarding her heart. Chip's high school girlfriend hears of Chip's illness and comes back to the home town to be with him too. Female rivalry is back.
Berg's excellent writing brings all of these characters off of the pages and makes them very real, just like 2 of the other books I've read of hers; OPEN HOUSE and DURABLE GOODS.
Do you remember signing year books in high school? Do you remember writing "Never Change"? This story is a classic that any high school graduate could relate too.
This is an excellent book. Do yourself a favor and read this story. You will agree.....It's like a class reunion with surprising endings!
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Slow-paced, 2002-05-31
Initially, when I first read this book, I thought the conversations that Myra had with her patients were extremely boring but as I continue to read the book, I began to understand why Elizabeth Berg included them in her story. As a reader, I learn a lot about what type of person Myra is by her conversations and how she care and interact with her patients. She's not your typical heroine, beautiful, rich with a great job and everyone falls in love with her, Myra is a wallflower, not capable of expressing herself to others and just loving herself. She is contented and at the same time, feels that she lack something in life. That changes, when she falls in love with her new patient, Chip Reardon, a guy she had a crush on in high school. Even though Chip was slowly dying of brain tumor, he teaches Myra how to love herself and how to love life. In a way, he understands her more than she does of herself. If you're looking for a exciting love story, this book is not for you. It's slow-paced, with some mundane details and personally, I had difficulty getting through at the beginning but I slowly grew to enjoy the book.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
The changing seasons of compassion, 2002-05-28
I chose this book incidentally, thinking Berg's name familiar. I doubted that the story of a 52-year-old woman nursing a dying former classmate through his final days could hold much more interest than a TV movie. I was wrong. Never Change is a clean, precise novel that walks through what could be mordantly sentimental, with grace and compassion. Myra Lipinsky, a nurse who has never married, uses her skills for in-home visiting care, her patients an assortment of characters as familiar as our next-door neighbors and aged relatives, who need a little extra help in performing small daily functions. From the absent-minded to the stroke-impaired, Myra unwittingly carves a bit of herself into each of their lives. To most of them, her visits are an event, an opportunity to interact with the diminishing outside world. When Myra takes on a new patient, Chip Reardon, a former classmate, her memories of their high school years are as vivid as yesterday, without sophomoric romanticism. Chip was one of the popular guys in school, his girlfriend one of the predictable energetic beauties who draw all eyes by simply entering a room. Myra watched them both from afar, anonymous in her plain adolescence. So she is pleased that Chip has become a genuinely nice man and spending time with him brings an unexpected fullness to her life, a companionship that she finds comfortable and welcome. Soon enough, Myra will need to assist Chip through each debilitating transition he faces. It is not difficult for her to love Chip; she is a loving, nurturing woman, unaware of her own value. In fact, Myra's own transitions are the most fascinating aspect of the book. She has an ability to adapt to change, a fluidity in her definitions of life. The decisions she makes, the truths she must realize, are not done in a vacuum. There is a circle of friends, many her patients, who gather around her like soft pillows, until Myra allows herself to be loveable. This refreshing novel has a clarity that only comes from an author who knows her own nature and understands her true self. Berg reminds us how many generous souls, like Myra, people the world we live in and how we benefit from their existence.
2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
 Boring, 2002-05-13
I got about half way through this book before I finally realized I really don't care about Myra or any of her patients. She is boring and needs to stop feeling sorry for herself and get a life. I'm not going to finish this book and it won't bother me one bit that I don't know what happens.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Contrived and saccharine - I liked it anyhow!, 2002-04-20
The set up is completely unbelievable - a 51-year old guy with the ridiculous name of Chip, comes home to die and Myra, a girl who had a crush on him in high school, just happens to be his visiting nurse. Big surprise - they fall in love despite his being a dream boat and her a dog. What saves this from being a maudlin piece is Berg's ability to make her characters real. Even though I didn't believe the plot for a minute, I believed that the characters were real people. Berg's attention to detail is excellent. Her character's voices and observations, and what they say to one another are true. That's why I truly enjoyed this book. But I won't give Berg a five. Recently I heard a story of hers read aloud. It had all the positive points of this book, but it was sophisticated, funny and deep. I want her to write a book with more depth. She can do it. She has plenty of cash now from the sale of all these sappy books. Come on, Liz. Give us a piece of literature.
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