Engagements (Sullivan)

Book Reviews
Satisfying.... At each stage of the game, the engagement ring has a different meaning.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


In Sullivan's easy, unadorned style, The Engagements is a delightful marriage of cultural research and literary entertainment—the perfect book to ruin your wedding plans. It's hard to describe The Engagements without making it sound like a lot of clunky exposition and domestic construction: five settings, dozens of characters, and all the attendant social and political contexts that need to be built for these separate plots. Don't worry: Even jumping from story to story every few pages, Sullivan handles all the details elegantly, and the situations are surprisingly distinct, adorned with the unique elements of the times and even the disparate ways people spoke.
Ron Charles - Washington Post


The author of Commencement and Maine threads her story with the glitter of diamonds.... It’s a tale that sweeps across varied emotional landscapes.
Sherryl Connelly - New York Daily News


This sprawling novel about marriage spans nearly 100 years and focuses on four couples, as well as a young single copywriter who coins the ad slogan ‘Diamonds Are Forever,’ which resonates through the decades.”
Cathleen Schine - Los Angeles Times


[C]aptivating.... [E]xamines the many facets of marriage, focusing on four couples—and on Frances Gerety, the real-life 1940s ad writer who came up with the phrase "A diamond is forever."
Laurie Hertzel - Minneapolis Star Tribune


The Engagements is a rollicking, entertaining read and a thought-provoking one too. Several of the characters’ voices have stayed in my head, and even days after putting it down I am left with a sturdy, hopeful sense of the fundamental goodwill of people and the abiding power of love.
Lindsey Mead - Huffington Post


The Engagements...opens in 1947 with ad-agency copywriter Frances Gerety.... Struggling to find a last-minute tagline for De Beers, she scribbles down ‘A Diamond Is Forever' and promptly falls asleep. For Frances, a lifelong bachelorette, it's just marketing—her boss points out that the phrase isn't even grammatically correct. But The Engagements' other characters show how much her tossed-off idea came to define diamonds as the ultimate symbol of love and commitment . . . [Sullivan is] a born storyteller. Like its mineral muse, The Engagements shines.”
Leah Greenblatt - Entertainment Weekly


Delving into the allure of ‘for better or worse,’ Sullivan’s novel starts with Frances, an unmarried copywriter who coins the ‘A Diamond Is Forever’ slogan, then follows four couples to the altar. Frank, but fun.”
Good Housekeeping


The author of Maine and Commencement returns with a sprawling tale about marriage, its meaning, its importance and whether or not a diamond really is forever.”
Ashley Ross - Marie Claire

 
The bestselling author of Maine and Commencement opens her third novel with the tale of Frances Gerety, the real-life ad copywriter who coined ‘A diamond is forever’ for De Beers.  It’s the perfect springboard for Sullivan’s story, which follows four couples as they navigate the shifting terrain of love and marriage.”
People
 

Inspired by the real-life story of Frances Gerety, a 1940s copywriter who penned the ‘A Diamond is Forever’ tagline for DeBeers, Sullivan riffs on the fragile state of marriage through a clever series of loosely connected vignettes. At the heart of each episode lies that sparkly symbol of romantic commitments . . . given a sharp and crystalline coherence by virtue of Sullivan’s sometimes bold, sometimes nuanced improvisation on the resonance of the diamond engagement ring. —Carol Haggas
Booklist


Is a diamond really forever? So Sullivan asks in her third novel, which explores the familiar territory of people who can't quite find the old connections but keep looking for them all the same.... Sullivan's story...ingeniously connect[s] stories that span generations.... [E]legant, assured, often moving and with a gentle moral lesson to boot.
Kirkus Reviews