In this follow-up to Sweeney's bestselling The Nest, a middle-aged mother and voiceover actor finds her husband's long-missing wedding ring, prompting her to re-evaluate her fond memories of the vacation during which he supposedly lost it—and her longtime friendship with the couple who had joined them on that trip.
Good Company is a sweeter novel [than The Nest], gentler all around, though the stakes are higher than the disappointments of a few middle-aged leeches ... For most readers...Good Company will resonate as a story about those rare choices that define life by cleanly dividing it into Before and After ... It’s a moment caught in time, but its meaning is informed by everything around it ... this novel plays with time in a similarly complex way, moving back into the history of a small group to bring everything to bear on the perfectly staged image of 'the couple everyone wanted to be' ... There are no villains in Good Company, which only makes the theme of betrayal more poignant—and more realistic ... Sweeney’s effectiveness as a novelist stems from her protean sympathy, her ability to move among these characters and capture each one’s feelings without judgment ... we get a poignant, sometimes comic sense of the way we each experience the same events, the same decisions, the same mistakes.
... as the book delves into their long history, old and new dramas emerge. Company is less immediately grabby than Sweeney's great 2016 breakout The Nest. But her warmth and wit refresh a tale as old as time.
Sweeney once again flexes her talent for crafting loving family dynamics that splinter due to errant behavior ... Sweeney skillfully navigates the narrow path between literary and commercial fiction with plenty of wit, warmth, heartache and joy. Like a comfy armchair, this is a novel you can sink into and enjoy. Good company, indeed.
