At first glance this appears to be a look at small town America, but it's better than that. "Songs in Ordinary Time" is more of a close study on how people justify their actions.

How does a swindler view taking other people's money as acceptable? How does a husband explain to himself why he hit his wife in a drunken argument? How does a businessman justify becoming a burglar? How does an alcoholic rationalize that "things will be different this time"?

Morris gives a perceptive look into the human psyche with this book.

With writing like this, HOW can people give this book low ratings and negative reviews?

[On a bus trip]   He was distantly aware of the wheels turning under them, the stench of exhaust through the dusty sliding windows, and beside him, n  the wet crunch of Lucille's pointy teeth into a pear.n

[Keep in mind this is happening at a formal business dinner!!!]   Biggs was a carpet installer from Detroit whose bad knees had ordained a new line of work. His life's savings as well his mother's had been invested in Presto. n  "Hear that?" he'd asked Omar during the cocktail hour, raising each leg up and down. 'That's cartilage crunching."n

I enjoy so much, getting to scrutinize other people's miserable lives. And I love how we get into the characters heads and know all their dramatic thoughts.

Please, Mary McGarry Morris, let all your other books be this good!!! This one goes on my favorites shelf, but, I put the paperback itself directly into the trash. Why? Because the printer or bookbinder really screwed up. There were 60-ish pages missing in the middle and then a whole section of pages were in the book twice!! Luckily, the ebook is an "always available" title on Hoopla so I was able to download it, read the missing pages on Hoopla, and then return to the paperback.

Bo-o-o-o-o-o-o-ring and WAY too long. All during the book, I kept thinking, "When is something going to happen?"

The only thing that kept me reading was the belief that there had to be some redeeming value in this book that had been so highly touted. There wasn't.

This was a wonderful read. It was about the citizens of a small town in Vermont in the summer of 1960 and all their problems and misgivings. The central focus was a struggling family of a divorced mother and her three children and the introduction of a murderous con man into the family unit. So many of the characters were so richly thought out and observed that they almost deserved their own novels. My favorite character was the middle child, Norm. Not all of the characters were positive but they all seemed human. I read this book during social quarantine from Covid as it proved worthy company.

A fallen priest, a con man, an insurance agent turned criminal, troubled teens, perverts, a small time hood kicked out of the marines, a snooty slum lord, adulterers, a drunk and a divorced mother of three trying to hold it all together in a small town somewhere in Vermont. We are told that John Fitzgerald Kennedy is running for president so we know that it's the summer of 1960, but in one inconsistency someone is described driving a Mustang which could not have happened until after the JFK assassination. It was a bit of struggle for me to get into the book, I found the first fifty to a hundred pages confusing but as I read on I found myself immersed in a story of small time life populated by the lowest common denominator of humanity...often depressing but just as intriguing as a soap opera.

I don't usually give bad reviews; I just skip those books. And the fault here may lie in the reader, not in the book. But I found this novel simply unreadable. I only managed to get through 50 pages, but there was not one hint in those pages that the book had any message other than the world is an ugly place and people can be badly damaged. I don't need a book to tell me that. Perhaps I should have been interested in knowing what happened when the murderous con man moved in on the dysfunctional family. But there wasn't a character sympathetic enough so that I cared what happened to him or her. Every character was selfish, deceptive, and manipulative at best, if not cruel and violent. Or else they were disturbed to a degree that would require psychiatric diagnosis. Even the dog was unpleasant. I don't require a Pollyanna view of the world, but if its darkness is going to be portrayed in a book, then I want that portrayal to have some meaning. I'm not interested in merely being a voyeur of madness, addiction, and dysfunction. I wouldn't read Dickens either if every character was Fagin or Uriah Heep.

Beyond depressing and too long

Beautiful writing but every single character was so flawed and every moment was so tragic. That was probably the point, but the novel was so long and every character/page/moment was depressing, disturbing and frustrating. Picked it up for a trip to Vermont, and it became a personal challenge to finish.

It’s an Oprah book club book, so of course it’s long, with a detailed plot, but also wonderfully written. Taken individually, our lives may seem routine and “ordinary”. Connected with those around us, however, life is anything but ordinary. This book highlights a period of time in one family’s life, and the community around them. Just as in real life, what the family views as “ordinary” is actually a story filled with emotion and unexpected surprises. The author does an excellent job creating well rounded characters, ones that are both loveable and unlikable, making them easily relatable to some friend or acquaintance in the reader’s life. The book doesn’t make any attempts to sugar coat the aspects of daily life, and yet manages to reflect how extraordinary each individuals story can be.

Plot: 1960 in Vermont. A divorced mother of three children is vulnerable, desperate & lonely. A drifter enters the scene, appearing to be the answer to the mother's prayers. The drifter is a traveling salesman of sorts, calls himself an entrepreneur, the law would call him a con artist and some may call him a killer.
I've read this novel referred to as a "masterful epic of the everyday, illuminating the kaleidoscope of lives that tell the compelling story of an unforgettable family."
I just kept reading, trying to find some redeemable qualities in some or ANY of the characters. I read to find a resolution to the angst and chaos but even the ending provided no satisfaction or release for me.

A very uninteresting story of a family in the 50s.

This book was a bit difficult to get into at first, but the author has such a way with words that I found myself reading some of her lines over and over again just to savor the artistry. I read this book about a year ago, and I still think about it regularly. The characters were so well crafted that I feel like I know them and wish I could read more about them. They were not all likeable, but they were so real. I wish I could write like this! If you prefer character driven novels over plot driven, this is the book for you. I thought it was great, but didn't realize how great until long after I read it, if that makes sense.