Callie Wright

The small village of Cooperstown, New York was abuzz with rumors during the 1960's following the publication of a novel called The Sex Cure, which reportedly exposed the neighborhood's secret exploits behind slightly altered character names. Three decades later, the impact of The Sex Cure is still being felt in the Obermeyer family, as a copy is discovered when Anne Obermeyer is packing up to care for her father following the unexpected death of her mother. Family secrets begin to unwind between the three generations, past and present, eventually "coming-of-age at any age".

Despite its automatic filing into the over saturated "Modern Family Drama" category, Callie Wright's Love All has the benefit of an interesting central plot device: The Sex Cure. This real novel, which takes a surprisingly long time to appear in Wright's book, holds Love All together and helps solidify its theme.

It takes Wright some time to find her voice in the novel. While seeing the story's events from each family member's perspective is necessary, the jumping from first to third person feels a bit misplaced, particularly when compared to the brilliant chapter written in the style of a will by Anne Obermeyer. Each line of Wright's prose shines through Anne, leaving the third person chapters feeling flat in comparison.

Still, Callie Wright's ability to create dynamic, realistic characters is clear. Love All is a strong debut novel, able to stand out among the crowded stacks of family dramas.… (més)

Joanie Cole's unexpected death has disrupted the balance of her family, the Obermeyers, creating uncomfortable living situations,removing the family's primary confidante, and reintroducing a long lost book whose secrets still haunt the family.

Callie Wright's Love All presents the Obermeyers' lives in the aftermath of Joanie's death, with the focus alternating between the children, the parents, and the remaining grandparent. Familial conflicts are examined from all angles and in the context of the family history.

The small-town ties are intriguing and the personal lives of each of the characters is compelling and relatable. I was particularly drawn in by that of the youngest Obermeyer, Julia. In the end, the book was interesting and well-written, but not particularly moving. (Three and 1/2 stars)… (més)

Not being a tennis player, KLove All meant nothing to me until I delved into this debut novel by author Calllile Wright. After reading for awhile and marveling at the many aspects of the personalities, I realized that only a week (in the novel) had transpired. So much living in such a short time, including finding the illicit book "The Sex Cure under her mother's mattress and dealing with the repercussions of such a find. The secrets that come out are devastating scandals that rock three generations of Anne's family. She begins to question her husband, Hugh, as he stays late nights at his town's preschool, and son Teddy's discovery changes his family forever.
Five unforgettable characters-aging grandfather, recently deceased grandma, teenage Julia, suspicious Hugh and son Terry- paint a picture of a family falling apart. Fidelity, loyalty and love triumph in this well-written story with just a touch of tennis as a background to add to a teenage's attempt at growing up.
I highly recommend this book to anyone, tennis player or not, as this novel will hold everyone's interest until the end.… (més)

Families are a big ole mess. Even the best of them has conflicts, tensions, and undercurrents that outsiders can't see. But generally what holds a family together is a common history, a love, and a caring for the members that helps to overcome the not so happy moments. In Callie Wright's new novel, Love All, she's presented a family floundering under the weight of infidelity and separate lives but leaning on their shared history, strength, and love to come back together.

When the family matriarch, peace-keeper, and intermediary, Joanie Cole, dies in her sleep unexpectedly, her loss tears a hole in the fabric of the Obermeyer family. In their new family configuration, Joanie's eighty-six year old, doddering, and increasingly forgetful husband, Bob, moves in with their daughter Anne, her husband Hugh, and their teenaged children Teddy and Julia. As Bob flounders with the loss of his wife, the rest of the family continues to face the dramas, disappointments, and challenges of their everyday life. Each of the characters lives in the same house but at a remove from all the other members of the family, plugging along in parallel existences, keeping their individual secrets, not confiding in each other, neither seeking nor offering compassion. Joanie had been their bridge so with her gone, they have to figure out how to be a family again, to care for each other, and to repair their thoughtless damage.

When Anne and Hugh were newly married, they moved back to the small town of Cooperstown, NY where Anne grew up so that she could be close to her mother. They've raised their family there and Hugh started a successful preschool called Seedlings in the town. Anne works insanely long hours as an attorney in a neighboring town and she and Hugh have become ships passing in the night, their marriage withering and fading from a lack of attention. And each of them are so caught up in the stresses of their individual lives that they barely notice the lack of a life together, they don't notice how lost Bob is, nor do they notice the confusion and desires of their children's lives.

Narrated by all three generations of the family, the reader has the chance to get inside each of the characters' heads and to see what is driving each of them, how they came to the place they are, and what each of them sees as the way forward. Anne wants a marriage different from her parents' but she has no idea how to make that happen. Hugh is embroiled in an affair with a parent at the preschool and wants nothing so much as to avoid a scandal and a potential lawsuit. Bob is left with his memories of Joanie and the regrets he has over his infidelities even if they were never formally revealed in The Sex Cure, the book that once rocked the town of Cooperstown and a copy of which Joanie inexplicably kept for the rest of her life. Teddy is on the cusp of adulthood, marking time with a girlfriend he doesn't really love, looking forward to buying his own Jeep, insecure about the thought of leaving for college, and having to face certain proof that his parents, his father in particular, has secrets from him. Julia is afraid to go for the things that she really wants in life, not even trying out for the tennis team and keeping her growing feelings for one of her two best friends secret in order to preserve their tight trio.

Wright has done a good job drawing each of the characters and showing how what they are keeping hidden from each other is tearing them apart. She has created a readable, relatable family drama. And although the different narration shows the distance the characters keep from each others' truths in the beginning, when they start to come together as a family, to confront what is real and what is important to each of them, the narrations show that as well. As with life, many of the plot threads are not resolved in the end here but they have been moved forward enough that the end, although still up in the air, is hopeful and realistic. The parallel of Bob and Hugh's infidelities and their fear of exposure, Bob through the infamous book and Hugh through a negligence lawsuit against the preschool, is not as explicit as it might be but the heartache and potential destruction of family their actions provoke is definitely similar. With the perspectives of so many characters needed to fully illustrate the family dynamics, this is an intricate novel indeed. Relationship, families, and what we owe them are all carefully woven into the fabric of this engrossing, strongly character-driven novel.… (més)