From Peace Corps volunteer to marketing executive? Ruth Talbot wants an about-face. Carole Howard
From the outside, Ruth seems to have it all: a high-powered career, happy marriage and family. But her inner Peace-Corps-Volunteer is hollering to be let out.
When she bumps into Vivian, her long-lost friend and former hut-mate, she realizes how different she is from the person she used to be and wonders if she’s lost part of herself—the best part—in her quest for “the perfect life.” Her internal tug of war gathers steam and knocks her seemingly perfect urban life out of kilter.
As they struggle with their differences and try to resurrect their friendship, the two women realize—with humor and a growing respect—that they each have strengths to contribute to a venture neither would have discovered on her own, one that melds past and present to shape an exciting and surprising future.
This contemporary novel toggles between flashback scenes in West Africa and present ones in Manhattan, as it chronicles the power of the women’s friendship. The characters are simultaneously memorable and down-to-earth, and readers begin to feel they’ve known them for a long time. They’re treated with affection, nuanced understanding, and a healthy dose of wit. This fast-paced, funny, and honest coming-of-middle age classic playfully walks the line between humor and wisdom as it deals with serious issues of mid-life and aging.
From PeaceCorpsWorldwide: “Having read many Peace Corps memoirs, I found About Face unusual in that it deals not with the village experience, but with what happens years later, after one returns to the “real world” and pursues a career that may or may not be affected by “the other world.”….. I imagine that writing this novel was an “about face” in [Howard’s] life. Writing is hard work, and she is an intrepid, perfectionist writer, who, I sense, thinks about every word she puts to paper.”
From TheThreeTomatoes.com: “You’re going to love Ruth Talbot, a 50-something cosmetic executive, who is engaged in a fiery power struggle with her new boss, and has a younger co-worker yearning for her job and willing to do almost anything to undermine her.”
From Amazon Readers:
“…transports the reader from the current day breathlessness of New York’s business environment to the life-changing world of a 1970s Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa.”
“It’s like a self-help book for women growing into the third stage of life mated with a laugh-out-loud light novel.”
“Her characters…seem like old friends. And just like the best old friends we think we know so well, these engaging characters each experience their own surprising ‘about faces.”